


Inferior Blue

by hTeDruknenPotaT



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Fluff, Gen, Human AU, Hurt and comfort, Mentions of Suicide, Music, Platonic Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-24 17:13:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 70,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3776794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hTeDruknenPotaT/pseuds/hTeDruknenPotaT
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Your name is Lapis Lazuli.  Lapis is a fun thing to name your child when your last name is Lazuli, and when your name is Lapis Lazuli, blue seem like a nice color to dye your hair.  It's fortunate that blue is your favorite color, that you manage not to despise it after all the blue you've been surrounded by all your life."</p><p>Lapis Lazuli meets a strange young boy who helps to heal the scars of her past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Musician

**Author's Note:**

> The idea is based on this lovely comic in which Lapis is a musician, whose only solace she found in life is a mysterious sick young boy whom she doesn't even know is ill. http://waterjerk.tumblr.com/post/114584188613/au-where-lapis-is-a-musician-whose-only-solace
> 
> I took it up a notch. It wasn't supposed to be this sad. Sadness will increase as the story progresses.

Your name is Lapis Lazuli.  Lapis is a fun thing to name your child when your last name is Lazuli, and when your name is Lapis Lazuli, blue seems like a nice color to dye your hair.  It's fortunate that blue is your favorite color, that you manage not to despise it after all the blue you've been surrounded by all your life.  You dyed your hair to match your eyes, which match the ocean on a clear, sparkling day.

Your name is Lapis Lazuli, and you live right next to the ocean.  Blue, sparkling waters in front of you, blue sparkling sky above your shiny blue head; a small, skinny blue wraith surrounded by blue. The ocean is the one thing you love about this place.  It gives you an old, nostalgic longing to listen to the waves breaking on the shore.

It saddens you that you can never step foot in the water again.

You're terrified of submerging yourself.  It's one of your greatest fears.  At least your fear of water seems rational to other people.  Not like your fear of mirrors. Seeing a mirror makes your small, frail body tense up, accompanying the irrational feeling of being trapped.  It's the opposite of your fear of water.  Because the water makes you feel free.  It's the only place where you feel alive and happy, like you're truly yourself, with the world muffled all around you. You're scared of the water because you know, if you ever felt that euphoria again, you would never come back up. One more of true happiness would be your last.

**~ ~ ~**

You preferred to play with your eyes closed.  At least then you could pretend that you were alone, and no one was watching you.  You could still hear the sounds of people splashing, screaming, and loudly enjoying themselves.  But in those moment when you managed to connect to your instrument, those voices were dimmed.  Almost like you were underwater.

You get a weird sort of pleasure from purposefully ignoring people, completely absorbed in your violin, letting them know they are not worth your attention.  But sometimes, people fall silent when you play.  It unnerves you a bit to know they are actually listening.  You don't play for anyone but yourself.

 _Buy Lapis a violin if that'll give her something to do,_ they said.   _Maybe if she gets a hobby, it'll lead her on the right track._  Well, you hate to admit it, but it might actually be working.  You show up for school sometimes, often just for music class.  The only class you have perfect attendance for. You don't even know if you're that particularly good at it.  You started out on the piano, which everyone insisted you were brilliant at, but you wanted a violin.  You wanted most everything that could make a beautiful sound.  So far you could play the violin, the guitar, piano, flute, and the cello, because those instruments were the only things they would willingly give you.

Your parents.  Your mother, wherever she was, still praying you had some hope left in you.  Your father, buying you a small, digital casio, thinking it could replace the living, wooden piano that you had to give up. If only they'd give up the one shred of hope they had.  You're not worth it.

It was nice to have a portable instrument that you could take with you to the beach.  It gave you an excuse to stand at the water's edge, using the waves as background music. If only it weren't littered with so many annoying people. Like the ugly little pest who's been hanging around you for the past few weeks. You try not to notice him, but his enraptured, starry gaze pierces right through the back of your head.  He has enough decency to stay quiet until you're finished playing.  But his presence is distracting. Unfortunately, no song lasts forever, and after the last long, drawn-out note, you allow yourself to open your eyes.  The boy immediately starts applauding.  "Yaaaay!  Play another one!"

Ugh.  Everything about that voice makes you cringe.  Today is just going to have to be the day that you acknowledge him, because he's clearly persistent.  "Please don't yell like that."

"Ohh, sorry, I hope I didn't ruin the mood!"

"You did."

"Oh," he says, then his face stretches into a ridiculous, strained-looking smile.  "Could you play another one?"

"Go away," you sigh under your breath.

"What'd you say?"

"Nevermind."  You pack up your violin in its case and turn to leave.

"Wait!" the kid calls.  He stumbles clumsily after you.  "You're still coming back tomorrow, right?" You whip around to face him.

"What do you care."

"I just like your songs.  They're really good."

"Thanks," you reply stiffly.  You start to walk away again, but the boy hurries to catch up with you.

"I especially like it when you play the flute," he says.  "Are you in a band?  Where'd you learn how to play so many different instruments?" You feel your face redden.  He really has been watching you every day.

"Have you been following me?" you ask.

"No, I live here.  My house is right on that hill."  He points to a very high hill close by.  Just behind it, if you squint, you can barely make out the edge of a roof.  "I used to just listen from the porch, but I really wanted to meet you.  I guess you could call me a fan."

A fan?  This is the last thing you expected.  You never asked for fans.  "I have to go," you blurt.  You start to run.

"Hey, wait!" the kid calls.  You run as fast as you can until you reach the street, turn a corner, and run behind a building.  You expected him to follow you, but when you look around, trying to catch your breath, you don't see him anywhere.

It's pointless to go home this early.  You know you'll be back at the beach tomorrow, and that kid is going to be back.  You can't explain to yourself why he makes you so nervous.  Other people have talked to you before.  Thrown money into your violin case, thinking that was why you were playing.  But no one's ever called themselves a fan.  And no one's ever returned just to listen to you.

You make it back home in double time, slamming the door and locking it, because you still have the irrational fear that the kid is following you.  Your dad can still get in if he decides to come home.  You think he has a key.  And if he doesn't, well, he can find somewhere else to spend the night.

After setting down your violin, you flung off your clothes right in the hallway, ready for a good long shower.  Spending that much time around the ocean always made you crave water.  And your dad's tiny apartment didn't have a bathtub, for obvious reasons. It didn't have a mirror, either.

You walk into the bathroom, automatically looking to the blank, ugly patch of wall where the mirror used to be before you shattered the glass.  As proof of your lapse of sanity were the scars on your knuckles.

It was tricky to dye your hair this way.  The only option was to do it in school.  It worked out well enough for you.  And well enough for everyone else.  Because no one was willing to try to fight you.

You set the water to the coldest temperature, and let the freezing water burn your skin.  The ocean could be colder than this on a day when no one was allowed to go swimming.  It could be this cold at night, when you could stare for miles into the endless abyss of darkness that the ocean led to, wishing it could take you there. For now you only have the coldest shower setting to help you feel alive.

You stand under the shower for an hour, when through your eyelids,  you see a pair of yellow eyes staring back at you.  Your eyes snap open, and only see the tiled wall in front of you.

Without another thought, you shut off the water.

You step out, wrap a towel around your slight frame, and curl up on the floor.  When did the feeling of water become associated with her?  "Go away," you groaned, clutching your temples.  It didn't matter what you did.  You could get her out of your head, but you would be seeing her again anyway tomorrow.

That settled it. You would be taking another day off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Yo listen up here's a story about a little girl who lives in a blue world...."


	2. The Violin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis is haunted by the memories of the greatest mistake she ever made, and Steven shows off his skills on the ukulele.

You could have claimed that she had taken advantage of you.  A small, helpless little girl like you-- everyone would have believed your word against the girl who could bench press as much as all the guys in your class put together, and weighed more than twice as much as you.  She could have done it, and might have done it if she wanted to.

But the simple truth is that she had asked and you had said yes. Sure, you were desperate, but you were in completely control of your mental faculties.  And you weren't as helpless as you looked.  You would prove that later to everyone.  That you could be lethal.  That you were no one that anyone would want as an enemy. But that night, you submitted yourself to her completely, without putting up a bit of resistance.  And when you woke up, you knew there was no going back on this.

You had dressed quietly.  You were a mess.  You wished that the day before you had chosen a dress that showed a bit less skin.  The marks made by her teeth were visible all over your body.  You hadn't expected her to be anything but rough.  It was what you were in the mood for; rough, lusty, loveless sex.  But now, you just wanted to go home.

"Aw, babe, don't leave so soon."

You steeled yourself and turned to face the sight of your girlfriend, yawning and sleepily [verb]ing over to you.  "I'm not gonna stay and make you breakfast."

"Aw, Lapis, don't be like that."  She smiled with the satisfied look of someone who had just finished a good, tasty meal.  She approached, looking gigantically over you, stretching out a hand to caress your cheek.  The hand was about as big as your entire face, and touched it with surprising softness.  "I had fun last night.  How about you?" Just to piss her off, you shrug.  Her grin widens, showing a set of very white and pointy teeth, and she chuckles.  "You're too damn quiet.  I bet I'm the only one who's ever had the privilege of hearing you scream."

She leans close, her face inches from yours.  Patches of white spread across her brown skin.  Tiger stripes, they called them.  Fitting for such a beast.  "I'm glad you enjoyed it." Her smile fades.  She released your face, stepping away from you.  "You wanna go that badly, fine.  Come back when you decide not to be a boring stick in the mud."

You politely said your farewells, then hurried home as fast as you could, hanging your head in the vain hope that it would hide some of the marks.  If there were stares, you didn't see any of them.  You were too busy staring hard at the ground.

Once you got home, you showered off, and searched desperately through your closet for something with long sleeves.  You found an old turtleneck, and a scarf.

Your name was Lapis Lazuli, and you were dressed for the winter at the height of August.  You sat down, feeling empty, wondering if you should cry, but not feeling up to it. With nothing else to do, you picked up your guitar and tried to remember the events in your life that led up to you dating Jasper.

It's a little hazy, but you remember elementary school, the fluffy haired brute pushing you down and calling you ugly.  Later telling you to kiss her.  Later mutually ignoring each other, allowing the other to live her own separate life. Your parents were divorced, you were lonely, and one thing led to another.  Jasper could be almost nice at times.  You even managed to learn a few things about her, like the fact that she was smarter than she looked, and actually had other interests outside of punching things.  She said all these facts in passing, but most time spent with Jasper had you pressed up against a wall, her mouth crushing yours underneath it.

It was your fault for coming back for more.  It was always your fault.  Whatever torment she gave you, you deserved every bit of it.  Your parents never punished you.  They left you alone to your own devices.  Even though if you never existed, they might still be together.  Or at the very least, stand a chance of being happy.

** ~ ~ ~ **

It's nighttime.  That's what the sky tells you when you uncurl yourself, blink your eyes open, and stretch your cramped limbs.  You can't believe you fell asleep right here.  At least it's not the worst of places you've fallen asleep.

You rewrap the towel around yourself, and patter down the hallway to your room.  It's a mess.  Sheet music and clothing cover the floor.  How does it get this messy?  You can't even remember where half this stuff comes from.  You throw on a sundress, thinking that night time would be a good time as ever to return to the ocean and practice some more.  No one visits the beach after dark.

You're almost at the door when you remember that the annoying kid from the hill can hear you from his porch.  You firmly decide that you don't care.  It's probably past his bedtime anyway.  If his parents set him a bedtime.  The concept of one is foreign to you. If he's listening, so be it.

You walk to the ocean, past the busy boardwalk, which is unfortunately still crowded with drunken, partying adults.  You stare out into the dark abyss, and feel just the tiniest bit guilty about filling the perfect void with your less than perfect music. A few minutes into it, and you forget the boy completely.  There is just you and the ocean.  It's relaxing.  When it's just you, your violin, and the ocean, your past melts away and you can be something that doesn't really exist.

Until you hit a sour note.

You cringe, the world comes back around you, and you hear the distant sound of drunken laughter.

That's enough of this sad crap, you decide.  The setting is perfect for the usual sad violin music, but the mood just doesn't laugh.  You let yourself take out your emotions into your music, playing something fast and angry, something you compose on the spot.  It doesn't matter how many times you screw up, you're going so fast that the only one who notices will be you.

Your spirits are lifted with your music, but after a while, that mood too dies.  You're getting tired.  It's time to go home.  You'll be back tomorrow.

** ~ ~ ~ **

True to your word, you're back at the beach, earlier than you'd normally show up, because music class isn't until later in the afternoon.  Hopefully the kid who follows you will be in school at this time of day.

You're still in the violin mood.  It's become your favorite instrument.  Maybe because you wanted it so bad.  So you're playing the violin again, and you indulge yourself by playing your favorite piece.  It's a piece that you transcribed to the violin yourself from your favorite metal rock band.  You enjoy putting violent music on your graceful string instrument.  Your violin is like you.  Small, delicate, easily broken.  But lethal, and powerful when you wanted it to be.

Your song ends quickly and abruptly.  You always thought there should be more.  You've been working on a new ending, but the mood is too good to spoil it with your half-finished attempt.  You breathe in the air, raised on the spirit of your music, when--

Applauding.

He's back.

"I've never heard you play like that before!  That was amazing!"

"Ughhhh...."  You sink to your knees.  They're swallowed by the sand.  "Uggghhhhh....."

The boy gasps, rushing over to you.  "Are you okay?  Do you need help?" You glare at him. 

"Why aren't you in school?"

"I don't go to school," he says.

"Oh.  Uh..."

"Do you go to school?"  He reaches out a hand to help you up.  You ignore the hand and stand, brushing sand off your skirt.

"Not today."

"Do you have summer vacation?  No, you can't, it's too early for that.  By the way, I heard you playing last night.  I really liked that last song you played."

So he was listening.  "Th-thanks."

"It made me happy, but it also made me sad.  And it also made me want to get up and dance.  The best music does that."

"Does it really," you sigh.

"I'm Steven," the boy says.  "And, funny thing is, I'm something of a musician myself!"

"Really?"

"I can only play the guitar and the ukelele, not as good as you, but maybe..."  He laughs.  He looks nervous.  "Maybe someday we could play a duet?"

"No."

"Oh.  Uh.  Oh well.  Am I annoying you?"

"A little," you say.  But now, curse this boy, you feel bad.  "Nevermind, it's okay."

The boy brightens.  "Can I show you what I'm playing?"

"Sure.  Go ahead."

"I'll go get my ukelele!  Be right back, uh..."  Only someone as short as him would have to crane his neck to look up at you.  "What's your name?"

"Lapis," you answer.  "Lapis Lazuli."

"Lapis," Steven repeats.  "Nice to meet you.  I'll be right back."

You watch his retreating figure grow smaller and smaller, then it disappears behind the hill.  You're not cruel enough to leave the beach and disappear while he's gone.  You stand watching the waves until he comes back.

He's panting heavily.  Strapped to his back is a colorful ukulele.  "Thanks for waiting," he says.  He takes his instrument, strums a few chords, and breaks into song.

"You sing too?" you exclaim, forgetting your #1 annoyance of people interrupting you.

"Yeah," Steven answers, smiling.  "I'm an amateur songwriter."

You're not sure what you expected, but he's pretty good.  And you can tell, he so obviously loves it.  You sit down in the sand, crossing your legs, listening politely to his performance.  The main difference between him and you isn't his cheerful taste in music.  It's that he's a natural performer.  He barely breaks eye contact with you until the song is finished.

"So what do you think?" he asks.

"Not bad."

Steven laughs.  "That means a lot, coming from you."

Your face heats up and you avoid his gaze.  You were used to compliments, but not this level of admiration... "I'm not that good..."

"Are you kidding me?  I've never heard anyone play as good as you outside the internet!"  He plops down beside you.  "I mean, I love most music, so I'm not too picky.  But even I know you can't fake talent."

"So, where'd you learn how to play?" you ask, eager to turn the conversation back to him.  "Are you self-taught?"

"No, my dad taught me.  He used to be in a band."  He looks out into the ocean with you.  "That's how he met my mom.  She was the only one who showed up to his concert.  Music's what's brought them together.  I'm a music child."

"Hm."  No one in your family shared your interest in music.  Not that you know of.  "Must be nice to have a dad who supports you."

You feel a hand on your arm.  You tear your eyes away from the ocean and see Steven gazing up at you, his eyebrows turned upward, in the most ridiculously sympathetic expression you've ever seen.  "Wh-why are you looking at me like that."

"You don't have a dad?"

"Uh, no.  I mean, yeah.  I do.  But--"

"Okay, good.  You scared me."

The corners of your mouth turn up before you even know you're smiling.  You cover your mouth to stifle a giggle.  "You're pretty weird."

"Hehe... I've gotten that before."  He chuckles.  His laughter is infectious.  You'd forgotten what it was like to laugh.  It hurt your sides.  But it was nice. It's getting out of control.  You're laughing uncontrollably, you don't even know at what anymore.  Steven giggles awkwardly.  "Uh, I don't get it.  What's so funny?"

"I... don't get it either!" you gasp.

Suddenly, a chirping ring sounds from Steven's pocket.  He takes out his phone and frowns.  "Aw, man..."

"Huh?  What's wrong?"

"I have to go home now," says Steven.

"Oh."  Your sides stop hurting, and something in your chest feels like it falls.

"Aw well..."  Steven pushes himself to his feet.  He holds out his hand, and this time you take it.  "Bye, Lapis."

"Goodbye, Steven."

He walks away through the sand, in no hurry to get home, turns back, and calls, "See you tomorrow!"

"Yeah," you reply awkwardly.  "See you...!"

You watch him until you can't see him anymore.  Without him here, you're suddenly aware of how many people are at the beach.  The ocean's waves sound louder.  You turn to face them, and keep playing.

The laughter is gone.  You sigh.  At least he'll be here tomorrow, you tell yourself.  And if for some reason he doesn't show up, you know where you can find him.

The hand on your bow freezes.  You stop playing.  This isn't right.  Steven's a nice kid.

This isn't right.

Steven's a nice kid.

He's way too nice.  What's he doing hanging around someone like you?

It isn't right.  He needs friends his own age.  You're shaking, you're not entirely sure why, and it's all you can do not to drop your violin.  Steven shouldn't be hanging around you.  You're a bad influence.  Especially to innocent little kids like him.

When he shows up tomorrow, you'll just have to tell him to leave. Or you can find somewhere else to practice. It'll be better for him if he can just forget about you completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: there really is a lot more to jasper than the fandom makes her out to be rly she was evil but i mean i can understand why she did the things she did and we need to take a step back and try to understand her more  
> Me: *writes Jasper as a one-dimensional abusive bitch*
> 
> Me: guys the malachite fusion was not a cartoon rape scene get your heads out of the gutter fusion is NOT the equivalent of sex!  
> Me: *writes the memory of a sex scene instead of a fusion* 
> 
> My name is Zee and I am a hypocrite. I want you all to know that I am a hypocrite. I do love Jasper. Malachite is my second favorite fusion next to Garnet and I am sorry I made this so messed up.  
> actually no im not sorry this was a lot of fun to write.


	3. The Flute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis recalls why it's a bad idea to associate with Steven, but she finds herself involuntarily warming up to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter that mostly has absolutely nothing to do with canon.  
> My plan is to have the story parallel canon more very soon.

 

You didn't like other children.  They liked to pull on the strings of the ribbons that you liked to wear.  They traveled in packs, and they were so, so loud.  You played by yourself in whatever small hiding place you could find.  You could hide for hours before a teacher found you, grabbing your arm and dragging you back into the cold building that held you captive with the other children.  School was hell.  And the worst part of it was that your mother asked you every day why you couldn't make friends.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked.  "Are they mean to you?"  You would stare at your feet while she interrogated you.  Humming quietly.  Pretending you were somewhere else.  A blow to your head would bring you back to her.  "WHY DON'T YOU ANSWER ME?" she screamed.  You started sniffling, and that brought your dad to your rescue.

He didn't fight your mother.  He never did.  But at least he tried to reason with her.  "Fine, I give up.  You talk to her."  He was better than your mother, but then, he would ask the same questions.  In a softer tone of voice, but he was slower to give up on you.  Eventually, he would shrug, and let you pad away somewhere quiet.

You had to talk to someone.  Even you needed someone to confide in.  Luckily, you had your little brother.  Your mother would sometimes let you play with him while she cooked dinner or cleaned the house.  You didn’t mind that he couldn’t talk, or the occasional spit-up.  The good thing about babies was that they listened, and even if your brother couldn't comprehend your words— your disappointment over having your snack stolen, how tall sunflowers could grow, how you wished you could go swimming when it wasn't summer.  Sometimes he would gurgle and smile at you. Your dad told you that meant he liked you.

You liked that.

You liked that a lot.

You didn't get along as well with the others.  Not that you ever fought.  In fact, they were downright polite to you.  But your little sister was so full of energy.  And your other brother— he was more like you.  Interested more in his toys than anything you had to say.  So you didn't confide in them the way you could confide to the baby.

Your dad wasn't home very much.  You think it made your mother even more stressed than she already was.  And you were an easy target when she would fly into a rage.  Screaming about how it made sense that your worthless trash father still defended you.  When you didn't cry or show any reaction, that would only enrage her further.  It was only when the baby started wailing that she would shut up.

One day, the two of you were playing in his room.  Surrounded by his plush toys.  Lying on your elbow, moving a stuffed animal, pretending to make an elephant talk. From outside, you heard the door swing open.  "Surprise!  I'm home!"

"Who in the hell are you?" your mother's voice laughed. He was home early.

You smiled, and stooped to pick the baby up.  "Cmon, baby," you crooned softly.  "It's time to see daddy."

You were quiet as you walked to the kitchen.  Your mother was trying to ask him about his day while your sister tugged on his shirt, begging for attention.  "Where's the baby?" he asked.  "Did you put him down for a nap?"

"He's upstairs," your mother answered.  "He's with Lapis."  She paused.  "She disappears for hours with him.  I don't know what she does with him... I don't think I should let this continue.  I've heard her with him.  She talks to the baby like he can understand her."  She doesn't even bother to lower her voice.  Not even a little.

You father laughed sheepishly.  "Well, at least she's talking to someone."

"I don't understand that girl at all.  Her sister and brother can make friends just fine.  I think—"  Now her voice drops to a whisper— "I think she might be deranged."

You didn't know what deranged meant.  But coming from your mother, that couldn't be good.  "Maybe," your father sighs, "we should try to get her some professional help.  She's definitely got a few screws loose.  But I don't think it's her fault."

"Professional help?   _Ha!"_ your mother barks.  "And who's paying for that?  God, you don't make any money!"

Got a few screws loose?  You ran a hand through your hair.  You didn't have screws.  You were a person, not a robot.  Your mother went off into the usual rant about her father never being home, asking where he was really going at work, wondering if he wanted to just take his crazy daughter with him to wherever he was running off to.

"Lapis isn't crazy," your dad mumbled.

"She's completely insane.  You don't know her because you're never home."

_Deranged?_

The sound of a thud and high-pitched wailing broke you from your thoughts.

You looked down at your feet, where your brother was crying on the floor, big fat tears running down his blotchy red face. You never knew babies could cry so loudly.

"Oh.  Oh, god."

"Lapis, what happened?"

Your parents rushed to the doorway, crowding your brother, his face covered in bumps and bruises as he continued to shriek.  The screaming hurt your ears.  You wanted him to stop.

You weren't allowed to play with him after that.  Not alone, anyway.  Your mother kept careful watch on you.  It was your fault for being such a burden.  It was your fault that your mother was always busy.

It didn't matter. You wouldn't want to be alone in a room with him even if they let you.

He wasn't safe with you.

The next things happened in quick succession.  You lost it at some kids on the playground, and one of them wound up with a bloody nose.  The teacher called your home in a panic.  This time, your father didn't defend you.  He felt it was time you deserved punishment.

You were confined to your room.  Why was it so comforting to hide in small spaces, but as soon as you couldn't leave, it became impossible to breathe?  They didn't let you out when you cried, when you screamed, or when you quietly refused the food your mother brought you.  When she finally let you out, you vowed to never speak a word to her again.

Then, your mother found out that your father had gotten fired weeks ago.  For not showing up to work on time.  For leaving work early.  "TELL ME WHERE YOU GO!" she shouted.  She was holding a broken glass in her hand.  Your brother wailed and everyone ignored him.  Your sister complained and she received a slap.  You were seen in the doorway and had to duck to avoid the flying glass.

Your mother wanted a divorce.  Your father promised to change.  Your mother offered a condition.  Me or Lapis, she said.  If you want to stay, we have to find somewhere else for Lapis to go.

You heard that, and returned to your room to pack a bag of a few belongings.  Your favorite sun dresses, and some satin blue ribbons.  Maybe you could run away before they sent you to jail.  You knew that was where you were going.  That's where all the bad people went.

But surprisingly, your dad chose you.  Maybe he was just getting sick of your mother.  Or maybe he wanted less people to feed.  So you didn't go to jail.  Instead, you went to the beach.  "It's right next to the ocean," your father said.  "You'll love it here."

You didn't care that the place your father had managed to rent was small and decrepit.  You had the sand and the ocean and the beautiful blue sky.  And you never had to see your mother again.  You could go swimming every day. Under the water, you didn't miss your brother.  You didn't ever want to come back up.  But human instinct brought your head above the water to breathe.

You like to think that you learned how to swim before you could walk.

The only thing that sucked was that you still had to go to school, where things weren't much better.  If anything, the kids in Beach City were even scarier.  Still, you had the ocean to return to.

But now, that stupid bitch has taken that away from you.

**~ ~ ~**

"Did I ever tell you I don't like children."

"B-but I'm a child!  You never told me that!  I thought you liked me now."

"I only really met you yesterday."

"Why don't you like kids?  That's so prejudiced!  You're kiddist!  Okay, that doesn't even sound like a word.  Still, what've you got against children?"

"They bruise," you answered, "too easily."

"That doesn't sound like a good reason to hate kids.  Especially me.  I'm super tough!"  Steven flexes his arms.  "Lapis, tell me something about yourself that doesn't sound kinda mean."

He's right.  That was mean.  Your vain attempt to get him away.  But you can't help but indulge him a little.  "Steven, can I trust you with a secret?  I've never told anyone this before."

Steven nods rapturously.  You lean in, and whisper, "This blue... is my natural hair color."

Steven blinks.  "I'm not sure if you're being serious," he says.  "But still, since you said it was a secret, I won't tell anyone.  Even if it's a lie."

"It's a lie," you say, allowing a smile.

"I knew it.  What color is your hair really?"

You're about to answer when a woman runs past you and kicks sand in your face.  You cry out, blinking sand out of your eyes.  "Whoa!  Hey, lady, watch where you're going!" Steven calls.  "You okay, Lapis?"

You pick up your violin, wincing, pouring sand out of it.  "Oh god, I hope it's okay..."

After deeming the violin okay, Steven looks around the beach.  "It's pretty crowded today," he comments.  "It's gonna get even more crowded with the summer rush.  Hey, you wanna go to the boardwalk before the lines get too long?"

"Huh?  I don't know..."

"Have you ever been to Funland Arcade?"

"I don't remember.  I think once..."

"I've beaten half the games there!" Steven says proudly.  "I could show you all the cheats."

"I don't really like video games."

"Please come with me," Steven begs.  "I bought all those cheats off my friend Onion.  I don't wanna waste them."

"I... I guess."  Darn.  You gave in.  So much for staying out of this kid's life.  "Wait, I can't.  I don't have any money."

"It's okay.  It's on me.  C'mon!"

You must look like quite a sight.  A small, blue haired teenage girl following around a cheerful little boy enthusiastically going on about how he could never beat one of his friends at Meat Beat Mania, no matter what help Onion offered.

You're not too sure about this place.  It seems pointless to feed machines your money to have them churn out worthless pieces of paper.  Plus, you can't beat Steven at anything.  It's making you frustrated.  Despite his constant reassurances that you'll get better eventually.

After an hour of games, you're exhausted.  You let Steven know.  "I'm pretty tired out too," he admits.  He leaves the arcade with you, looking disappointed that his fun afternoon wasn't as fun as he wanted it to be.  "You wanna get something to eat?"

"No, I think I should go."

"Huh?  No, the afternoon's just started!  There's still a lot more to do.  We could ride the teacups.  Or... the dragon coaster!  Or we could go back to the beach and just jam some more, if that's what you want."

"No," you say.  "To tell you the truth, I'm kinda ditching school right now.  I should really get back."

"Understandable," Steven says.  "Where do you go to school?"

"Beach City High," you answer.

"Wow, really?"

Another person who must have thought you were a middle schooler.  "Yeah, I'm older than I look, okay?"

"What?  I didn't think you were still in highschool, how'd you manage to learn that many instruments already?"

Okay, you're starting to like this kid.  Might as well break things off before he drags you in too deep with his obnoxious enthusiasm.  "I have a lot of extra time," you mumble.

"So do I.  You're pretty incredible."

"I gotta go," you say again.  You can't spend another minute with this kid.

"Okay.  Let's do more fun things tomorrow."

"I, uh..."  What can you say?  "I might... be busy tomorrow.  M-making up schoolwork.  That I missed."

"Oh.  Sooooo... the day after tomorrow?"

"I don't know."

God, he's so persistent.  "Why... why do you want to hang out with me that bad?"

"Because I think you're pretty cool," he answers.  You search his face for a lie.

"It's my hair, isn't it."

"Your hair is pretty," he says seriously.

"You're just not gonna leave me alone until you find out what my natural hair color is, you twit."

"Absolutely not."

It makes you sad to leave him.

**~ ~ ~**

You make it in time for music class.  The logical part of your brains asks you, what are you afraid of?  Dropping him?  Drowning him?  Steven's not delicate like a baby.

Then again, Jasper wasn't either. And if you could take her down as easily as you did, you could hurt Steven in a whole number of ways.

Your logic and paranoia battle it out over the next couple days, and you wind up staying in the music room to practice until a custodian kicks you out.  You go to school every day to keep yourself off the beach.

A week later, you wake up to a sparkling day.  The kind of perfect weather that leads right into summer vacation.  Glorious, dazzling summer vacation, where you don't have to see anyone from school for three months.

Without thinking, you take your flute in your hand, and dance out the door into the perfect light breeze.  You twirl around a bit, spreading out your arms to catch the air.  Without thinking, you dance the familiar path to the beach.  The ocean is calling you.

You bring the flute to your lips when you remember Steven.  He doesn't go to school.  He'll be listening from his porch.  You sigh in resignation.  "This one's for you, Steven," you mutter. Steven likes the flute.  He liked music that was happy and sad, and made him want to get up and dance.  You take a deep breath.

**_fWEEEEEEEEEEET_ **

You blow the loudest and most obnoxious sound into the flute that you have ever made.  "THAT ONE'S FOR YOU, STEVEN!" you yell.

It's the time of day when the beach is practically empty.  A perfect time to practice your skills at flute beatboxing.

As you're stomping your feet and banging your head, only one thought is on your mind: "Where the hell is Steven?"

You thought for sure he'd love this.  After five minutes of stomping around and looking like an idiot, the mood is dead.  There was no way in hell you are going to walk to that house to see if he heard any of that.  You sigh, sit down in the sand, and practice your boring, typical flute music for the ensemble you're working on for school.

You play your flute until the sun starts to go down.  You decide that it's time to stop when you realize how light headed you are.  Another reason you like the violin better.

When you play the flute, more often than not, you forget how to breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Instant angst: just add backstory.  
> I feel like Lapis is a type of character who can be pretty loosely interpreted, because we don't know a whole lot about her yet. She's not any specific stereotype, and much of her is a great mystery.  
> So like, I can write her as an angsty troubled teen if I want to.  
> Stay tuned for sadness. Coming up chapter 5, in a couple days, hopefully. Along with shitty fart jokes, donuts, and the lovely Crystal Gems~  
> I sure update fast, don't I? I'm like the anti-Homestuck. Or what Homestuck used to be like back in 2012-13.  
> Also fight me and tell me that you can't see Lapis Lazuli flute-beatboxing.


	4. Beach Summer Fun Buddies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven declares Lapis his beach summer fun buddy, and Lapis can't refuse him any longer.

It's been a few days now and you're convinced that Steven was just some weird hallucination.  As a tribute to his made-up memory, you've taken the flute to the beach with you.

The sun is setting.  You try to match your music to the mood of the sunset.  No flute-beatboxing for this hour.

 It's dangerous to look into the sun while it's on the horizon.  But you stare at it anyway.  It makes the waves shine orange in the distance.  You're standing with the wind blowing in your hair, when—

"Yaaay!  Bravo!"  Your skirt flies as you whip around and see him smiling and throwing sand in the air like confetti.

"Wh-where've you been?"

 "Oh, don't worry, I was listening the entire time!  That stuff you were playing with the flute— I didn't know people could do that!  It was like—  It was like—"  He can't seem to find the words to describe what it was like, so he waves his arms and makes exploding noises.  "You're so good!" he shouts.

"So... you were home?"

"Uh, yeah.... I wasn't feeling too good so I had to stay inside.  But I'm better now.  I'm ready to jam some more."

"Okay.  I'll be honest, I was... kinda starting to think I made you up."

 "I do have that effect on people."

You find yourself giggling.  Somehow, at this moment, something tells you that Steven is perfectly fine.  You can trust him.

“So do you wanna go out for pizza today?”

And you can trust yourself around him.  “S-sure.  That sounds fun.”

His grin spreads across his entire face.

**~ ~ ~**

“So, where did you first learn how to play?”

“Play what?”

“Anything!”

“Well, I started with the piano... a long time ago.  I don’t really remember.  More than ten years ago.”

“Okay, your turn.”

“Why don’t you go to school?”

“I’m homeschooled.”  Steven’s hands fidget on a napkin.  “It’s kind of a long story... do _you_ like school?”

“I hate it,” you seethe.

“Aw, why?  You get to see your friends and learn cool things every day.”

“I don’t have friends,” you say, crossing your arms.  “And the stuff you learn in high school isn’t cool.  It’s useless.”

“You remind me of one of my other friends,” Steven says.

“How so.”

“You’re both kind of anti-social.  And anti-authoritarian.  Whatever that means.”

“I am _not_ anti—”  You shut yourself up before you spew the whole story of why you don’t have any friends to him.  He doesn’t need to know.

“If you say so.  Anyway, it’s my turn.”

“Right.”

Steven pauses for a while, thinking hard.  “Okay, uh... is is blue your favorite color?”

“Good job.  I wonder how you guessed.  My turn.  What’s _your_ favorite color?”

“Pink!” he exclaims.  “Cause I’m a man.  And every sensible man knows that the best things in life are pink.  Like strawberry ice cream.  And flamingos.”

“I think you’re wrong.  The best things in life are blue.”

“Like what?”

“Water.”

“And your hair!”

You feel your face flushing.  You touch your hair, brushing it shyly behind an ear.

You were used to people calling your hair things other than pretty, or one of “the best things in life.”  Gaudy, tacky, ugly; trashy was the most common.  Jasper had once told you that it made you like a fairy.  A dainty, delicate little fairy that she could break in half with a finger, she said.

You shudder at the memory.

Steven munches on his donut, smiling brightly.  He absolutely insisted that you _had_ to come to The Big Donut with him.  He introduced you to his friends, Sadie— a tiny girl hardly taller than Steven, and Lars— who was apparently his BFF.  “I like your hair,” Sadie had told you, and you replied by staring dumbly back at her.

“Thanks,” you said after a five second pause.

“So,” Steven says, his mouth full of donut, “you have summer vacation starting tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah.”  Thank god.  No more hours of sitting in a stuffy room bored out of your mind, no more threats to call your parents, no more awkwardly avoiding your ex in the hallways....

“Alright!  That means we can hang out every day!”

“Yeah,” you laugh.

“We have to learn some new songs!  Man, there’s so much to do!  Do you wanna go swimming tomorrow?”

“Oh.  Uh...”  How do you explain to a kid that you can’t swim because of a developed fear of water?  “No.”

“Why not?” Steven whines.  “Do you know how to swim?  I could teach you!”

“No.  I... know how to swim.  I’m just... Uh, salt water’s bad for my skin.  And my hair.  It could wash all the dye out.”

“Hmm.”  Steven glares at you suspiciously.  “Those sound an awful lot like... excuses.”

“Trust me.  I can’t have you finding out my natural hair color.  That would ruin everything.”

“You’re a tough nut to crack, Lapis Lazuli,” says Steven.  “Someday I’ll find out.  And I’ll get you to like the ocean.  It’s made of water.  You love water.”

“How do _you_ know that?”

“You just said that!”

“Oh... oh, yeah.”

You dodge his questions of why you love water but won’t swim in the ocean.  “I think I’ve seen you with your feet in the water before,” he says.

“Little stalker.”

“That is no way to talk to your fans.”

You’re honored.  You’re really honored.  Not just that Steven is your fan, but your friend.  You both finish your donuts, and his parting words to you are, “So... beach summer fun buddies?”

“Wha...?”

“We can be beach summer fun buddies!  I’ve always wanted a special friend just for the summer.  But all my friends either have jobs or their parents make them go to tennis practice and junk like that.  So... what do you say?”

He holds out his hand.  Is he really asking you to shake on being Beach Summer Fun Buddies?  You look at your own hand for a moment, then you spit right into your palm.  “Here.”

“Wait.”  Steven spits on his own hand and you shake.

Summer has always been your favorite time of year.  But now, you’re looking forward to it more than ever.

**~ ~ ~**

Steven jumps into the water fully clothed.  The way he swims, you want nothing more than to join him.  Maybe he’s tempting you.  He splashes you to get you used to the ocean water.  Not knowing that you’re already used to it.  So used to it you’re itching to get back to it.

He realizes that isn’t going to work, so he has other ideas.  He decides that he has to take you to ever restaurant, carnival ride— every single attraction Beach City has to offer.  Otherwise you stay right by the ocean and play a friendly game of beach ball.

He challenges you to a sand castle building contest.  What he makes is a glorified mound with a stick in it.  What you create is a square castle complete with turrets and towers and brick walls.  It’s a little rusty, but you’ve been out of practice.  You both finish in roughly the same amount of time.  You swear, Steven’s eyes actually fill with stars when he’s enraptured.  

“You’re like, made for the ocean!” Steven insists.

He’s right.  And you wish you could swim with him.

But the summer goes by quickly.  Not every day is joyful and Steven-filled.  Sometimes he tells you he can’t hang out because he promised to meet with his friend.  The one he desperately wants you to play something for.  “I hummed some of your songs for her and she recognized nearly all of them,” he says.  “She really wants to hear you play.  Can’t you at least meet her?”

“I don’t play for an audience,” you say.  “Not unless they have no idea who I am.  You’re the exception.”

You’re a Beach Summer Fun Buddy with limits.

Other times, he disappears for days at a time without warning.  He always comes back before you have time to doubt his existence again, but he comes back looking exhausted.  Whenever you ask him what he’s been doing, he gives you a convoluted response.

Rather like the responses you give him when he asks you about the ocean.

You consider visiting his home on the hill just to check on him.  But you would feel weird introducing yourself to his family.  A teenage girl befriending a young boy... was this sort of thing unusual?  You don’t know enough about social constructs to know.

You like Steven.

You like him a lot.

He’s a great person to have as a friend.  He makes you happy.  You’re not entirely used to the feeling, but it’s liberating.  Liberating, but not intoxicating like the feeling of being underwater.

All that matters is that Steven isn’t delicate enough to break, or despicable enough to drown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was rather short but very necessary. Don't worry people shit's gonna go down in the next chapter.


	5. Summer's End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis hasn't discussed the secrets of her past with Steven, but she finds out that he himself has an enormous secret he's been keeping from her.

_"PPPBBTTHH"_

"No, it's more like...."  You press your mouth into the palm of your hand and blow.   ** _"PPPPPPBBBTHTHT!!"_**

This has Steven erupting into fits of laughter so hard he clutches his stomach and wheezes.  "Okay, okay—" he gasps when he recovers himself, "lemme try that again!  I think I got it this time."

He blows into his hand again, but only manages to get spit everywhere.  You burst out laughing.

Maybe the middle of a fancy restaurant isn't the most appropriate of places to be making fart noises, but that's exactly why you decided to eat here.  "Scare off polite old ladies" has so far been the best Beach Summer Fun Buddy activity you've chosen.

"Aww, I can't do it.  Not as good as you."  Steven hangs his head and looks at his hands.  "You're amazing, Lapis.  You really can play every instrument.  Even the fart."

"It's true," you reply.  "I can fart Beethoven.  You wanna hear?"

Steven grins.  "Let's see if anyone recognizes it!"

You blow into your hands for five solid minutes before a stuffy-looking waiter approaches you and says stiffly, "Ma'am, unless you and your friend can stop making those noises, I am going to have to ask you to leave."

"Oh, I'm—"  Before you can apologize, Steven blows a raspberry right in his face.

You grab his hand, and take off running, pushing past waiters to get both of you the heck out of here.  As soon as you're out the door, you both fall down on the sidewalk.  You fall in peals of uncontrollable giggling.  "I cannot believe you just did that."

Steven's not laughing.  He's panting, and not even smiling.  "Uh, are you okay?"

"Y-yeah, I'm fine.  Summer heat, yknow?"  He smiles.  "So, any other pieces you can fart?"

"I can fart anything.  And..."  Your voice drops to a whisper.  "I can fart out of anywhere."

"Can you do the arm-farting thing?"

"What a joke."  You press your hand into your armpit and squeeze.

"Well, I can do that too!” Steven says indignantly.  “Sometimes.”

"I could probably play the flute out of my butt."

"Do it," Steven breathes.

"I'll have to get my flute.  Think we should go back in the restaurant and do it?"

"You can put on a show!  A talent show!"

“What would your talent be?” you ask.

“Being _awesome,”_ Steven replies.

You’re ready to get out of here.  The sidewalk is scorching through your skirt.  You stand up, looking around, deciding where to go next.  The day is still young, and summer vacation isn’t ending for another couple weeks.  You hold out your hand to Steven.  “Where to next?  Any places we haven’t been banned from yet?”

Steven’s not looking at your hand.  He stares straight ahead, at something you can’t see.  “Uhh, Steven?”

“Yeah.”  He snaps out of a sort of trance, and takes your hand.  He stands up clumsily.  “Lapis, uh… I have to use the bathroom.”

“Okay.”  Which place has a bathroom?  There is the restaurant you just evacuated, but you could just imagine trying to get back in there just to use the bathroom.  “Do they have one in the arcade?”

Steven doesn’t answer you.  He still holds tight to your hand.  He looks pale.  “You… okay?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Let’s get you to a bathroom.”

The poor kid needs to go so badly that his face is scrunching up.  He looks like he’s in a lot of pain.  You start to hurry past groups of strangers, leading Steven to the arcade.  He stumbles along behind you.  Finally, he lurches forward, and you grab his arm in time to stop him from hitting the sidewalk.

“Steven?”                                         

He grips your skirt to keep standing.  You reach around his shoulders and slip an arm around him.  Praying he doesn’t decide to pee himself now, you walk him over to the nearest bench to sit down.  “Steven?”  He doesn’t answer.  He’s panting as though he just ran a marathon.  “What’s wrong?  You look terrible.”

Finally, he looks up at you.  His eyes are brimming with tears.  “Lapis, I need to go home.”

“O-okay, can you walk?  Should I get my car?”

“I don’t know.”

You look around frantically for someone who can help.  Suddenly, Steven doubles over, clutching his stomach.  Before you can get an arm around him, he rolls off the bench.  “Steven!” you call.  Some other people hear you, and turn their heads curiously.  You drop down beside him.  You put a hand cautiously on his shoulder.  You nearly recoil at how bad he is trembling.  “Steven?  Wh-what’s wrong…?”

“Hey, kid are you okay?” a man’s voice calls.

Steven’s only responses are incomprehensible whimpering noises.  Finally, he pushes himself by his hands into a sitting position.  His hands shake horribly as he reaches into his pocket, and takes out his cell phone.  “Are you trying to call your parents?” you ask.  “I-I’ll call them for you!  You have to lie down somewhere—”

“Th-thanks, Lapis….”  He groans.  You hold out your hand for his phone, but it slips from his hands and falls to the ground.  He slumps sideways, onto your lap.  “S-Steven?” you call.  “Steven!”  You call his name over and over, but he’s not answering.  You shake him.  He’s unconscious.

Your mind goes blank.  Images flash through your head of your brother shrieking on the floor.  You knew it.  You shouldn’t have ever made friends with him…  Now he’s paying the price for your stupidity…  You just knew it, you knew things would happen like this—

“Hey!”  The man who had called out runs over to you.  He kneels down in front of Steven, picks up his head, pulls back an eyelid, and looks you dead in the eye.  “What happened?” he asks.

“I-I promise you, I don’t know—”

The man puts Steven’s head down and you pick it up, holding him protectively against your body.

“It’s okay, calm down,” the man says.  You start shaking.  You realize the man isn’t accusing you, but he _should_ be, you know this is all your fault, somehow….  “Stay right here, I’ll go call an ambulance.”

Your throat is too tight to speak, so you nod your head.  “Th-thanks,” you squeak.  The man takes out his phone and dials.  You clutch Steven tighter.

When the ambulance comes to take him away, you bend down pick up his phone from the ground.  At first you’re paralyzed with fear when the vehicle drives away, blaring its sirens, but as soon as it turns the corner you take off and run.

You sprint blindly, tearing off through the streets.  You arrive home, stop briefly to catch your breath, and reach through piles of nameless object to find your car keys.  You find them on your dresser.

As you drive to the hospital, you become more aware than ever of nuisances like speed limits and red lights.  “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, MOVE YOUR STUPID FILTHY ASSES!” you scream to the cars in front of you.  Their filthy asses seem intent on staying five miles below the speed limit.

You have to exercise all self-control not to start speeding.

**~ ~ ~**

He’s still alive.  And he must be okay if they let you in to see him.  You keep telling yourself that, but you can’t make yourself believe that he’s okay when he is hooked up to monitors, and when cannula tubes snake out of his nostrils.  The sight of Steven like this is too unbelievable to make you want to cry or do anything but stand and watch him.

You realize that you're holding his phone.  Maybe you shouldn't creep through other peoples' phones.  But it might be a good idea to let his parents know what happened.

You scroll through his contacts.  He has a lot of them.  But quickly, you find "Dad."  Your finger shakes above the call button.  It shouldn't be this hard to call someone.  But you don't have much practice with the phone.  God, you don't want to do this.  The thought of calling anyone makes you all kinds of anxious.  Finally, you grit your teeth and press the damn button.  For Steven.  You're doing this for Steven.

You thought it might be easier once you hit the call button.  But as the phone rings you can barely stand up you're shaking so hard.  It takes three endless rings for a voice to say, "What's up, Steven?"

"Uhh, this isn't Steven."

"WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR HIM?  I'LL DO ANYTHING!"

"Wh—"

"Who is this?!"

"I'm, uh... just a friend."  You take a deep breath, steel yourself, and tell the story as best as you can.

You're worried the man might have a stroke before you're finished telling him what happened.  You hear his attempts to control his breathing and when you're done, he wheezes, "Thank you, very much for calling, I will be right there!"

Just when he hangs up, you hear the bed sheets rustle.  Steven stirs, and your breath catches as he groans and blinks his eyes open.  You lean over him.  "Steven?" you whipser testily.  He turns his head, and his eyes meet yours.  He looks so unlike himself.

"Lapis..." he mutters.  "What happened..."

"You just collapsed at the boardwalk!  What happened, that's what I wanna know!

"I..."  He pauses.

"Are you sick?  Did you know you were sick?  Why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm sorry I scared you," he says weakly.  His hand clutches the sheet.

"No, no, don't apologize!"  You hesitate before reaching for his hand.  "You shouldn't be sorry, just tell me what happened!"

Instead of taking your hand, he pushes himself up on his elbows.  "What are you doing.  Steven, lie down—”  He attempts to raise himself into a sitting position.  This doesn't look like it's going to work.  "Here, let me help—"  You search the buttons to raise the bed.  These buttons are unfamiliar to you, but you manage to find the button that raises the head of his bed.

"I'm sorry," Steven says again.  "This kind of thing.... it happens a lot.  A lot more than it used to."

"What kind of thing?"

Steven shrugs.  "Chronic attacks, trouble breathing... yeah, I'm sick.  And I shouldn't have been running around the boardwalk and making fart noises at old ladies.  That was a bad idea."

"I took you out," you say.  "I... I brought you outside, you should have been in bed—"

"You didn't know!  Lapis, it's not your fault!"

You run your fingers through your hair, trying to make sense of everything.  "Why didn't you tell me?”

Steven sinks down.  He pulls the blanket up to his shoulders.  He turns his body the other way to stare out the window.  "I... I didn't want you to treat me different."

"Treat you different?  How?"

"We’ve been having so much fun so far, I just... I didn't want you to treat me like I'm...."

"Like you're what?"

"Like I'm DYING!"

All too suddenly, he starts to wail.  Uncomfortable memories of the baby screaming flood your head, but you sit yourself down on the bed.  Steven curls up and covers his face.  "Steven...."  You put an arm around him, and gently pull his hands away.  His face is red and shiny with tears.  Sobs wrack his body.  "Steven, what... what do you mean...?"

He's shaking, then he starts coughing.  Something speeds up on the monitors next to his bed.  You pull him against you.  Not sure what to do, you start rubbing his back hoping to ease his breathing.  It sounds like he's not getting enough oxygen from the cannula tubes.

"Sh-should I call a nurse?  Steven?"

"N-no, don't... call anyone... what's the point—"

You hear the footsteps rushing outside the hallway before the door swings open.  You practically jump off the bed, and wheel around to face the new intruder—

—Intruders.

The first enters; a very tall black woman with a square-shaped afro and heavy shades.  A second intruder bumps into her when she stops.  She picks herself up and the first steps further into the room to let the others inside.

Two more woman follow behind her, one very short and round woman with dark skin dressed nearly all in purple.

The third woman is very obviously frantic as she steps inside.  She has the palest skin you have ever seen on a person, a long, pointy nose, and short, bleached hair styled to a point at the back of her head.  She and the short one gasp and rush over to Steven.

"STEVEN!" cries the thin woman.  She runs to the bed, grabbing his hands.  "Oh, why didn't you call us?"

The purple one slams into her, nearly falling on top of Steven.  "Are you okay?  We heard what happened, and—"

The tall one steps between them and pushes them both out of the way.  "Give him some room to breathe," she says.  She bends down and speaks gently.  "Steven, how are you feeling?"

He wipes tears from his eyes and looks toward you, standing awkwardly in the corner.  "I-I'm fine now.  I'm okay, it was just a... a small attack."

“We heard you fainted!" exclaims the thin one.  "That does NOT sound like a minor attack"

Keep your voice down, Pearl," the tall one interrupts.  "Steven, I thought you might want to know that we called your father and he's already on his way."

“Oh.  Really?  That was fast.  Wait, how long have I been out?  What time is it?"

The thin one's hands fly to her mouth.  "Oh, Steven...."

"Calm down, P, it can't have been that long," the purple one says.  "The guy at the boardwalk said he called the ambulance like, an hour ago.  Don't scare him like that."

No one notices that you're still standing there.  Except for Steven, who keeps glancing in your direction.

He's okay.  He's fine now.  He's got these women here, whoever they are, and his dad is on his way.  You're only taking up room at this point.  You slip quietly out of the room, ignoring Steven's weak call of, "Lapis, wait—!"  The strain of his voice makes him cough again.  Just as you stop to turn around, the door shuts behind you.

You'll check on him tomorrow.  For now, you're glad that he's surrounded by people who care about him.

It's hard to believe that the day started off with fart jokes and laughter.  You feel like such a different person than you were just a couple hours ago.  No, you're the same person that you were last spring.  Before you met Steven.

He's dying.  Was he just exaggerating?  You have no idea, and you left before you could ask.  What if he is?  Are you going to lose the only friend you've had in years?

You spend an hour under the freezing cold showerhead to calm down.  You curl up on the tiled floor, willing time to take you back to earlier this day when you weren't worried about anything.  He can't be dying.  Steven can't be dying.

Of course he can.  You have a history of nearly killing the people you've been close to. You should have been expecting this.  You should have pushed him away before he declared you Beach Summer Fun Buddies.

After a very long time, your fingers get prunier, but besides for that, everything stays exactly the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most everyone is pretty much the same in this AU, besides for the gems, obviously. The ages of all the gems are as follows:  
> Garnet/Pearl-Mid-40's  
> Amethyst-Early 30's  
> Lapis/Jasper/Peridot- 17-18  
> Rose was probably the same age as Garnet and Pearl, or maybe a little older. Their gemstones correspond to their birthdays, so Lapis, being a December gemstone, is the oldest of the AU highschoolers.


	6. The Crystal Gems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven needs some cheering up, so Lapis tells him a story.

You visit the hospital bright and early the next day.  When you start your car the thought on your mind is "fuck school" when you realize that school has been let out for two months.

You decide to knock before entering his room.  "Come in," calls a male voice that isn't Steven's.  A doctor?  A nurse?  Timidly, you push the door open, and slip inside.

You’re glad to see that he's sitting up and looking happy.  But you're nervous to see that he's not alone.  A man with long, graying hair sits in a chair next to his bed.  At the foot of the bed stands the thin woman from yesterday.  "Hi," says the man pleasantly.  “Are you Steven's friend?"

"Uh, yeah.... Lapis Lazuli."

The man stands up and walks over to you, and holds out his hand for you to shake.  "Uhh...."  You stare awkwardly at the man's extended hand.

"She's the one I told you about, dad!" says Steven.

“Oh!"  The thin woman smiles at you.  "What a pleasant surprise!  Steven has told us so much about you.  It's nice to finally meet you."  She joins the man in awkwardly standing in front of you, blocking your view of Steven.  "I'm Pearl."

"Oh, yeah, I'm Greg.  I mean, Mister Universe."

"Uhh...."

"Steven says you're very talented," says Pearl.

You don't like this woman's voice.  It sounds patronizing like an elementary school teacher's.  "N-nice to meet you.  How's Steven?"

"I am doing much better," Steven says.  You peek over Greg Universe's shoulder to see him.  The cannula tubes are out of his nose.  He looks perfectly healthy.

Steven's dad returns to his bedside.  "Yeah, glad to see you're doing better, kiddo, but don't strain yourself."

Pearl is still smiling at you.  "I would love to hear you play someday.  You can come over any time if you want."

"Th-thanks?"

"Oh, and of course, thank you for taking care of Steven."

"R-right.  Are... are you Steven's mother?"  She doesn't look a thing like him.  Neither do the other two women.  But maybe they're not related by blood?

"Me?" Pearl laughs.  "Oh, goodness no!"

"Pearl, Garnet and Amethyst are my aunts!" Steven pipes up.  "Well, sort of.  Adopted aunts."

"Yes, something of the sort," adds Pearl.  "We were very good friends with Steven's mother.  I suppose "aunt" is the closest word can come up with.  Next to godmother, which is _technically_ what we are.”

"I see.  So, Steven, where is your mom?"

As soon as the question is out of your mouth you know you shouldn't have asked.  The room falls dead quiet.  The smiles drop off everyone's faces.  "I-I-I'm sorry—"

"Oh, don't be," laughs Pearl nervously.  "It's a perfectly reasonable thing to wonder, but, well..."  She looks to the other two for help.  Steven's head sinks down into his shoulders.  "I'm afraid... Rose Quartz is no longer with us.  Honestly, no one blames you for wondering."

"Yeah, don't worry, Lapis," says Steven glumly.

So his mother was dead.  Well, at least it could have been worse.  His mother could be like yours, or cheating on some other man, or who knows what.  Still, the awkwardness in the room is tangible.  You want to leave.

Just as you're beginning to plan your escape, you're saved by a knock at the door.  Before Steven can say, "Come in!" another visitor bounds into the room.  A dark-skinned girl who looks about Steven's age, clutching an armful of books.

"Connie!" Steven shouts.  "Yaaay!  You brought books!"

The girl dumps the books on a bedside table.  "Steven, are you okay?  You looked like you could barely type when you texted me!"

"I assure you, I am A-ok now."

"Nice to see you, Connie," says Mr. Universe.

"Nice to see you, too, Mr. Universe," replies Connie politely.  "Anyway, Steven, I brought the first three books in The Hairy Maker of Pots series, because I don't want you reading the last books first.  That totally ruined The Chronicles of Nernia!"

Can't wait to get started," says Steven.  "But first I want you to meet my friend.  Lapis."

"Hiiiii," you say.

"Lapis, meet Connie and Connie meet Lapis.  She's the one who I said reminds me a bit of you."

Connie gasps.  Her eyes widen.  _"You're_ Lapis Lazuli?"

"Uh, yeah, that's me."  You rub at the back of your neck.  How many people has Steven told about you?

Connie jumps up and rushes over to you.  "Can you really play The Hairy Maker of Pots theme on the violin and the piano?"

"And the guitar!" Steven adds.  "I heard her!"

 _“Wow,”_ Connie breathes.  “Do you think you could play it for me?”

“No.”

“Ah.”  Connie seems taken aback by your abruptness.  “Well… do you have any videos of you on the internet?”

This girl really does not reminds you of you at all.  “Aw, please, Lapis?” Steven pleads.  “Could you do it for me?”

It’s really hard to say no to a kid lying in a hospital bed.  But looking at all these expectant faces is making your stomack churn and your cheeks flush.  What do they want you to do, put on a recital for them?  “M-maybe.  I’ll think about it.  Not today.”

“It’s okay, kid.  No one’s pressuring you,” says Mr. Universe.  The man creeps you out just a bit, but you decide that you won’t dislike him completely.  “Anyway,” he adds, turning back to Steven, “I have to get back to the carwash.  I’ll see you later.”

He gives Steven a one-armed hug.  “Bye dad,” he says, his voice muffled by his father’s hair.

“Feel better,” says Mr. Universe.  On his way out the door, he puts a hand on your shoulder.  “Thanks for the call.”

“Oh.  Y-you’re welcome.”

Steven looks sad to see his father go.  But he’s quickly distracted by Connie, who shoves a book in front of his face.  “Steven, you are going to _love_ this series.  Don’t you dare watch the movies before you read the books.”

“But it has a nice soundtrack!”

“It’s arguably the best.  But _don’t watch it.”_

You don’t think you like this Connie girl that you remind Steven of.  You’re glad to see that Steven’s okay, but you came here to see if it was true that he was dying.  You can’t get a word in past Connie.  Plus, what are you even supposed to ask?  _Hey, Steven, is it true you’re dying?_   “Uh…”  Your eyes rove around the room.  “Pearl…?”

“Yes?”

Slowly, you approach her.  She’s not as tall as her companion from yesterday, but she’s still a lot taller than you.  It adds to the patronizing teacher feeling.  “I didn’t even know Steven was sick.  Is he… gonna be okay?”

Pearl opens her mouth, closes it, glances at Steven, glances back at you, then looks down at the floor.  “We’re all hoping,” she says.

Your blood turns to ice, even as Steven laughs at a description from the book.  You have so many questions— How long does he have?  Is it going to get worse?  Can he even get better?  You can’t ask Pearl all of these things.  You don’t trust her.  You wish you could talk to Steven alone.

“Hey, Lapis!”

Are you going to even get the chance to talk to him alone again?  Or is he going to be kept under strict surveillance from now on?

“Lapis.  Earth to Lapis!”

“H-huh?  What?”

“Did you ever read The Hairy Maker of Pots?” Steven asks.

“No.  I just watched the movies.”

Connie gasps.  She glares at you and shakes her head.  “Blasphemy,” she whispers.

“You should really read it.  It’s hilarious!”

“It’s more than that,” says Connie.  “It’s the perfect balance of character development, wit, action, adventure, and only just a bit of romance on the side.  It’s the only book I’ve seen with a male and female lead that don’t have disgusting amounts of romantic tension between them.”

“I’ve seen the movies.”

“They completely _screwed it up_ in the movies!  They made Hormones drop-dead gorgeous; she was _not_ meant to be that attractive!  She was my favorite character in the books, but…”  Connie calms down.  Her voice slows.  “I guess you don’t really care, do you?”

You blink.

Connie’s shoulders fall.  All the anger at Hormone’s misrepresentation goes out of her.  “Well,” Steven says, breaking the silence, “we are all allowed to like things for different reasons.  Lapis likes the movies for the music.  You like the books for the character development and small romantic subplots.  Let’s all agree to be friends.”

Pearl stands up, picks up a book, and starts leafing through it.  “How big is the romantic content?” she asks.  “It better not be anything inappropriate…”

“Professor Dumb-Door is gay,” Connie says. 

Steven covers his ears.  “Nooo!  Spoilers!”

Pearl gives Connie the blankest stare.

**~ ~ ~**

They keep Steven at the hospital for another day before he’s allowed to go home.  As you expect, he doesn’t come out visit you at the ocean for a few days.  You’re comforted knowing that he can hear you play.

Every song is now dedicated to him, along with a prayer to the ocean that he’ll get better.

You bring yourself as close as the steps in front of his house.  But you still can’t bring yourself to go inside.  Instead, you stand under the porch and sit down in the shadow cast by the huge hill.  You play for him there, knowing that’s where he likes to listen.

“LAPIS!”

You’re startled by his voice that calls so suddenly that you nearly drop your violin into the sand.  “Steven?”

You crane your neck, and you can barely see his head sticking out the window.  It disappears from view, and the next thing you hear is a door slam.  Steven’s footsteps pound down the stairs and he meets you at the bottom of the hill.  He takes a moment when he arrives to drop to his knees and wheeze.

“Oh god, are you okay?  You shouldn’t be out here.”

Steven frowns.  “I’ve— been stuck inside— for days,” he pants.

“But… is this really safe for you?  I-I’ll come inside with you…!”

“This is _exactly_ why I didn’t want you to know I was sick!” Steven yells, throwing up his arms.  “I was actually having fun.  You made me feel like a normal kid!  I’ve got enough people fussing over me, I don’t need this from you, too!”

“But the last time I made you overexert yourself, you passed out.  I… I want things to be normal, just like you do.”  You put down your violin and hug your knees.  “I liked hanging out.  But I can’t pretend that everything’s the same as it was before.”

“Everything _is_ the same as it was before,” Steven says.  “Can’t we just pretend that—”

“NO!” you scream.  Steven flinches.  “This isn’t the kind of thing I can just ignore!  You said… you said you were dying.”

Steven hangs his head.  He tucks his legs under him.  “Yeah, I did.  But… no one’s really sure.  It hasn’t gotten better, so I guess…. I guess no one wants to expect the best thing to happen.”  He swallows.  “I don’t feel sick all the time.  I usually get better before I get worse.  Sometimes, when we were just hanging out and having a good time…  I was able to forget that I was sick.”

“I get it,” you say.  Being around Steven made you forget that you were practically a murderer and a complete failure at life.  But you can’t tell him that.

“I hate it.”  He blinks fast.  His eyes well up, and a few tears spill down his face.  “Because of me, my dad had to sell his house and live in a van to pay my medical bills.  He works really hard every day, and he doesn’t get to spend any of that money on himself.  He pretends that everything’s fine, but his hair is falling out!”

You remember telling Steven how nice it must be to have a dad who cares about him that much.  So it could be painful to have someone care about you.

Who knew.

You didn’t.

“So… I live with my aunts now.  They’ve had that house on the hill for a long time.  They used to live there with my mom.”  He sighs.  “Everything’s changed ever since we found out I was sick.  I used to visit Garnet Amethyst and Pearl every day anyway.  But my dad still had his hair, and things in general were just a lot happier.”

You sit still before you can decide what to say, choosing to listen quietly to the sounds of the ocean.  “I… I get it.  I wish I could tell you how much I get it.  But we can’t let things go on like they used to.  We can still hang out on the beach, but… we can’t go too far.  I promise you I’ll try and treat you the same.  And… I won’t ask you any questions that you don’t want to answer.”

“So no more beach summer fun buddies.”

“Of course we’re still beach summer fun buddies!” you yell.  You press your palm to your mouth and blow a fart into it.

Steven giggles reluctantly.  “You know…  When I met you, I heard you playing the flute, and your music was beautiful but... you looked so sad.  I thought that anyone making music that pretty should look happier.  I didn’t know you had fart jokes in you.  I didn’t know you could laugh.  Do you think… you can still laugh at stupid things like that?”

“Say something funny and I’ll laugh.”

“I can’t think of anything funny to say.”

“Then I’ll tell you a funny story,” you say.

“Can you tell me a story?” Steven asks.  “Any story.  A happy story.  Maybe a funny story too.”

You smile at the sky.  “Once upon a time,” you begin, “long before even television existed…  There was a team of superheroes who came from another world to protect this planet.  A team known as… the Crystal Gems.  Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl.”

“Is this actually a story?” Steven asks.

“Yes.  Because these superheroes were magical.  In fact, their human forms were only projections of their gemstones.  They can do all kinds of things, like… summoning weapons out of their gems.  And shape-shifting into anything they want.  They use their powers to fight evil and protect humans.”

“Okay.  That sounds like a story.”  Steven shifts his position, lying on his stomach and resting his head on his hands.  “So my aunts are magical alien superheroes.  Go on.”

You close your eyes and listen to the ocean.  You think it’s giving you ideas.  “This story’s about the Crystal Gems.  Together, the four of them—”

“The _four_ of them?  Who’s the fourth?  My mom?”

“She used to be.  But now the fourth Crystal Gem is… a little boy named Steven.”

Steven gasps.  “I get to be a superhero, too?”

“Yeah.  But you’re not quite there yet.  You’re—  I mean, Steven is the only known half-gem half-human in existence.  He’s half magic on his mother’s side.  He inherited her gem.  Her Rose Quartz gem.  It’s on his stomach.  He’s got it instead of a bellybutton.”

“On his stomach….  So where’s everyone else’s gems?”

“Uh… I’m not sure yet,  But his mother’s gem was also on her stomach.  Anyway, Steven didn’t know how to use his powers yet.  He can summon a weapon and shape-shift but… he doesn’t know how.  His powers are different than the others.  Because… of his human half.”

“And he’s not sick?  And he gets to live with his dad who still has a full head of hair?”

“No, he still lives with the gems.  Because they teach him how to use his powers, and they take him on adventures.  But… no, he’s not sick.  In fact, he has healing powers.  He can heal with his—”

 “His tears,” Steven whispers.

“Even better.  He has healing _spit.”_

Steven nods.  “That _is_ better.”

“But he doesn’t know that yet.  Anyway, Steven, what’s your favorite treat?”

“Cookie Cats,” he breathes.

“Well, they’ve been discontinued.”

“WHAAAAT?!  I use my powers to get them back, right?”

“Well, let’s see.”

You’re not a writer, or a storyteller.  You’re not much of a reader either, but you manage to throw together a silly little story about Steven and his weird, mysterious godmothers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nernia is not to be confused with Narnia. I've never read The Hairy Maker of Pots series, because it isn't real. But I hear it's good. All I know is that the second book is called "The Hairy Maker of Pots and the Mysterious Chamber Pot." In case you didn't get the joke, what is a maker of pots called?
> 
> By the way, I've decided that this work is going to be 14 chapters long. This might change, but I don't think it will. I'll try to post one chapter a day, because that is what I have been doing so far. Pray for me that this writing streak lasts.


	7. Mirror Gem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a very long time, Lapis finally creates her very own gemsona.

All too soon, summer vacation ends, and school begins.

You’re back to enduring strange looks and horrified whispers in the hallway.  Your biggest comfort is that next year, you’ll be done with all this crap.  Who know where you’ll go after high school, but at the moment, you can’t bring yourself to care about your future.

If everything had gone as you planned it, you wouldn’t have ever had to worry about such trifles in the first place.

You commiserate so hard with Steven that it hurts.  During most of the summer, you were able to forget all your plans to kill yourself back in your first years of high school.  Even throughout junior year, your suicidal fantasies still made you feel peaceful rather than sad.  They were only fantasies, because you knew that you couldn’t kill yourself yet.  You would have to wait and disappear first, but it was only a matter of time.

Spending time together made you both forget that you were going to die.

You hardly dream about killing yourself anymore.  You decided after the summer of last year that you didn’t deserve an end like that.  Rather, you would endure and let everyone know who you were.

After your first day back, you’re so exhausted that you want to go straight home and fall asleep in the shower.

During the summer, you had the glorious illusion that this was all ending.  School gives you a reality check.  You are not Lapis Lazuli, Beach Summer Fun Buddy— you are Lapis Lazuli, the freaky blue psychopath.

You drag yourself to the beach instead.  It is still technically summer, and the sun still scorches the sand.  Today is the day that you’re going to visit Steven’s house for the first time.  Not just to give yourself something to do, but you can only assume that now that all his friends are in school, he must be really, really bored.

Knocking on his door is nearly as hard as calling his dad.  It’s something that you have to force yourself to do with every fiber of your body.

Taking down your hulking brute of an ex-girlfriend was so much easier than this.

It’s a good thing the door is a glass one, otherwise you would have been scared out of your wits when the purple one, Amethyst, bangs the door open.  She stands with her arm lazily half-raised in greeting.  “Yo.”

“Hi.”

“Come on in,” she says.  She stands aside and bows extravagantly.  “Welcome to our _humble_ abode.”

You step inside, and look around for Steven.  “So.”  Amethyst smirks at you.  “I’m a superhero now?”

You blush.  “I… I just made up that story on the spot.  I can’t believe Steven told you.”

“Are you kidding?  He summons his weapon by eating ice cream?  That story’s _gold,_ kid.  I wanna hear more of them.”

“He didn’t summon his weapon by—  I mean—”

“Riiiiight.  He needs good feelings and happiness.”

You don’t like Amethyst.  You decide that right now.  Amethyst chuckles.  “I mean it.  It was actually a cute story, okay?  Anyway, Steven’s here somewhere, he’s probably in the bathroom or something.  Now I got stuff to do, so Imma leave you right here.”

You can’t tell if she’s trying to be friendly, or if she’s just teasing.  The house seems to be just one open, airy room, until Amethyst stalks off down a hallway so thin you wouldn’t have noticed it otherwise.  You squint down it.  Your first thought is that it must lead to the Gem’s secret lair, but you hit yourself in the head for thinking that.

“Steven?” you call.  You don’t see him anywhere.  Where’s the bathroom?  Is it rude to go knocking on someone’s bathroom door to try to find them?  You walk in circles around the big room that seems to be most of Steven’s house.  There are shelves of toys and books, and above them, up a short flight of stairs, is what has to be Steven’s room.  You sit down on the couch right below it to wait.

You hear a rustling behind you.  “Huh…?”  You look up, but you can’t see anything moving.  “Steven?”

“BOO!”

You shriek.  His face pops up right above yours.

“Ha!  I’ve been hiding this whole time!”

“D-did Amethyst know?”

“It was her idea to scare you!”

Stupid Amethyst.  How old was that woman supposed to be?  “You know I’m gonna get back at you.  Really bad.”

Steven hurries down the stairs to meet you.  “I can’t believe you actually came inside,” he says.  “How’s school?  Do you hate it?”

“Ugh…”

“I’m guessing it still sucks.”

He sits himself down next to you.  “Yeah… but I’m out next year.  How are you doing, huh?”

Steven looks at his lap.  “I wasn’t feeling so good yesterday, but… today’s been good so far.  But I’ve been a good boy, just like everyone’s been telling me to be.  You know… sitting inside… letting the last beautiful rays of summer go by….”

“Let’s go outside,” you say.  “It sounds like you could use some sun.”

Once you’re sitting in the sand outside, you’re relieved to see that Steven is still the same old Steven.  Still lively and animated, still wanting to be friends with you of all people.

You play around in the sand until the sun starts to set.  “Lapis…” Steven sighs, lying on his back, “can you tell me another story?”

“You… you really liked the last one that much?”

“Yeah.  It made me happy.  I’m just a little curious about my mom in this universe.  What happened to her?  She was also a superhero, right?”

“Yeah.  She was… a great Gem warrior.”

“Let’s say Gem warrior instead of superhero from now on.  That sounds cool.”

“Okay.  Anyway, she gave up her physical form to have y— to have Steven.  Gem reproduction kinda sucks that way.  But she still left behind all sorts of useful things… like… her…”

“A kind of weapon?”

“Not her shield.  Only she and Steven can summon it.  But yeah, it was a…”

“Laser Light Canon!”

“Sure.  Yeah, but they couldn’t find it.”

You’re really not sure where you’re going with these stories.  You go home and binge watch television shows for research.  You go through the popular ones, the ones about aliens and magic.  They’re shows that you might have seen an episode of here and there, but now you study them like homework.

You study them a lot harder than homework.

Doctor What, Extranatural— those shows seem to be a bit too heavy for what you’re going for, but they do give you some great ideas.  “No Shit, Sherlock” is obviously not for kids, but you add that to your list anyway.  You put the growing and semi-popular webcomic Housetrapped in your list of “maybes.” 

Over the next week, you take out some children’s fantasy books to study.  If Steven likes these stories, you are going to make them worth it to listen to. 

Worthy of an audience like Steven.

**~ ~ ~**

It’s not just Amethyst.  You’re not too sure about any of his aunts.  Pearl, who talks to you like you’re a small child that needs to be spoken to gently.  Garnet, who hardly talks to you at all.  But Steven obviously loves them.  He jumps to hug them whenever they come home, and they hug him back.  If they love Steven, and if Steven loves them, you can keep making them sound cool in your stories.

You visit nearly every day.  Most days, he’s in pretty high spirits.  On other days, he’s stuck in bed with some terrible pain.  During those days you never know whether to leave early to let him get some rest, or stay and try to make him feel better.

Laughter is the best medicine, but your expert fart noises are losing their novelty.

Sometimes, Connie is there.  After your first meeting, you two really don’t have much to say to each other.  “You should include Connie in the story!” Steven suggests.

“Oh!” Connie exclaims.  “My gem can be right between my eyes, and my weapon is—”

“Your glasses!”

“No way, unless I can shoot lasers out of them—”

“You’re not a gem,” you interrupt.  “You’re a human.  There aren’t any stones named Connie.”

“Who cares, this is a story!  You can do whatever you want.”

You get the feeling that Connie is the type of person who would create an OC in a fanfiction and make them the main character.  You wait until she goes home before you ask Steven, “So how did you meet Connie?”

“She used to visit the beach with her father, and she lost of bracelet.  I kept it in the freezer for her until she came back.  She told me she didn’t have any friends, so… I told her I’d be her friend.”

“Is that why she reminds you of me?”

Steven shrugs.  “Maybe?  It’s just that… you’re both smart and funny but you rarely show it.  And if you both acted that way with other people, they’d probably like you a lot.”

You don’t feel like talking about this.  “You wanna hear about the new power Steven discovers?”

Steven nods.

Well, now he can create a bubble.  And Connie in the story is exactly as Connie is in real life; an anti-social girl with no special powers.  Steven sits on his bed, listening rapturously and clutching a stuffed lion.

That lion is giving you ideas.

After you’re finished with your newest installment, you ask him about it.  “Ohhh… you have to put Lion in the story!  Any story can use a magical lion!”

“It definitely can.”  You stoop to ruffle the lion’s faux mane.  “Hey, it’s pink.  Your favorite color.  The same color as your gem.”

“My mom got him for me,” says Steven, staring deep into the lion’s eyes.  “I think she won him at a carnival.  Back when she was pregnant with me.”  He squeezes the lion to his chest.  “Do you wanna see a picture of her?”

“Yeah.  Sure.”

Steven puts down the lion and starts down the steps.  “It’s in the hall.”

“Oh.”

Steven leads you across the one main room of his house into the narrow hallway where you’ve never been before.  The place where you put the temple in your story.  There are three doors that can only lead to Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl’s respective bedrooms, and a framed photograph on the wall.  The picture shows slightly younger versions of Steven’s aunts.  Amethyst is a short-haired teenager, with her arm around Pearl, whose hair is less pointy in the back.  Garnet looks mostly unchanged aside from her outfit.  And standing behind them is the most gigantic woman you have ever seen.

She’s not just fat, she’s even taller than Garnet.  She has masses of curly, sausage ringlets, and heavy pink lip gloss.  Her arms are around all three of her friends.  The way she smiles, you feel like she’s smiling at you.

She’s beautiful.

“That’s your mother?”

“Yeah.  Someday I’ll be as tall as her.”  Steven pauses.  “I mean, if I get better.”

 _Of course you will,_ is what you want to say.  But you don’t know that.  And for now, it’s better not to hope.

**~ ~ ~**

“All I wanna do… is see you turn into…. A giant woman—”

“What are you doing?”

Steven stops strumming on his ukulele and looks up at you.  “I’m adding musical accompaniment!” he says indignantly.  “I just felt a song coming on.  Don’t mess up my funky flow.”

“That’s okay.  Steven brought his ukulele with him to the mountain.  He usually does that when he goes on adventures.”

“Well, that’s very smart of him.”  He beings strumming again and starts over.  “All I wanna do, is see you turn into, a giant woman—”

“A giant woman~” you sing.

Steven smiles.  “All I wanna be, is someone who gets to see, a giant woman.”

You tap out a beat against your leg.  You never thought your stories would be good enough to deserve musical accompaniment. 

Housetrapped gave you the idea of two personalities magically merging into one being, and you were inspired to use your idea of fusion after watching Pearl and Amethyst bicker.  You didn’t think it was your most unique idea, but Steven clearly loves it so much that he’s written a song about it.  “You should write that down,” you tell him.

“Finish the story first!  Do they form Opal?”

“You were the one who interrupted.”

“But it was part of the story!”

“You’re right.  It was.”

You’re not just gonna have all this buildup and have Pearl and Amethyst _not_ form Opal.  They overcome their differences for the youngest member of their team and fuse into one epic, graceful being.

“I wish I could see what Opal looked like,” Steven comments.  “Maybe I’ll draw a picture.”

“She’s got sorta light purplish-bluish skin.  And… a really fluffy ponytail.  She’s about twice as tall as Garnet.”

“She has Pearl’s pointy nose,” Steven decides.  “I can kinda see it!  So, when’s the part where I learn that I have healing spit?”

“I’ll get up to that,” you say.  “Eventually.”

You have no idea when eventually will be, because these ideas come and go.  Sometimes you agonize for hours over finding a good storyline.  Other times the ideas flood your head so fast that you don’t have time to make sense of them.

Most of your time outside of school has been consumed by Steven.  You’re distracted from your music by wondering just how many sinister things can come out of the ocean.  It’s very distracting, but you can’t say you’re not glad for a distraction.

It makes school bearable to know that you have a reason to keep going.

The weeks pass, and summer is officially over.  The beach is empty of tourists around this time of year.  The air has started to develop a chill to it.

It’s been nearly two months since the end of being Steven’s Beach Summer Fun Buddy.  After you finally tell him about his healing spit, he asks you for the millionth time when you’re going to show up in the story.  “You put almost everyone I know in it!  Aren’t you _some_ where in Beach City?”

“Of course not.  I’m a gem.”

“You… you are?”

“Lapis Lazuli is a kind of precious stone.  That’s what I was named after.”

“Oh.  I think I knew that.  I have no idea what my name comes from.”

“Kinda strange that your mom wouldn’t want you to be part of her rock family.”

“I’ll ask my dad.”

On your way home, you stop to practice the guitar by the ocean.  You find yourself absentmindedly playing “Giant Woman.”  Steven’s made up two songs for your stories now.  Both fusion stories.

He must really love fusions.

You already know your alternate, alien self.  You feel more connected to her than your own human body.  You know her well.

Lapis Lazuli the gem is old, bitter, vengeful, and completely blue.

As for your own human self, your hair needs to be dyed again.  Your roots are coming in, and you still can’t have Steven finding out what your natural hair color is. 

As usual, you do it in the school bathroom.  The looks you get aren’t any worse than the ones you usually do.

The thing you hate about the process is spending so much time in front of the mirror.  It’s difficult to ignore the claustrophobic feeling that nearly paralyzes you.

You just love the color blue too much to let it grow out.

**~ ~ ~**

People thought you were a bit young to dye your hair blue.  It was around five or six years ago that you started. 

Back then, you had another hobby to occupy yourself with besides for your music.

Dance classes were a little something that you decided to try.

You enjoyed them enough.  The people there weren’t too bad.  Hardly anyone made a quip at your hair.  You didn’t mind them and they didn’t mind you.

You made your first friends there.

At first, you liked the mirrors.  You could see yourself at every angle, even as you spun, and when you watched the instructor. When you looked into those mirrors, it seemed as though you stood in the center of an eternal crowd of classes just like yours. They had distracted you so much that you kept missing what the instructor had said, which would result in an embarrassing scolding from her.

After a debilitating session, you prepared to walk home.  That’s when you remembered that you had left your slippers in the practice room.  You slipped away from your chattering peers and went back to get them.  You flicked on the light, and quickly spotted your slippers lying on a bench where you had left them.

You remember picking out those slippers.  The pretty slippers with the shiny blue ribbons.

You hugged them to your chest when you found them, even though they smelled and were filled with sweat.  You knew you couldn’t have lost them forever.  If they weren’t in the practice room, you knew that they could have only been stolen.

You had forgotten why students weren’t allowed to go in there without permission.

You had never paid attention to the instructor’s jangling keys as she would unlock the door, but The sound seemed to sweep back to your ears now as though they were right there. As you tried to force the door handle down, the realization came to you and your chest filled with panic.  In your exhausted state of mind, you had totally forgotten how the door locked from the inside.

“Calm down,” you said to yourself.  “Calm down, calm down, calmdowncalmdown….”   You took a deep breath and told yourself firmly that there had to be other people in the building.  There had to be janitors, a cleaning crew, a custodian that would eventually find you….

You sat on the floor and waited.  Your heart pounded as the minutes ticked by.

You wanted so bad to go home and shower off and relax your aching muscles.

It was getting hard to breathe.  “SOMEONE HELP!” you shrieked.

You yelled and yelled and yelled.  But no one came.

After an hour, your throat was too tight to scream anymore.  All that would come out were hoarse hisses.  You curled up on the floor and sobbed.

When you were done sobbing, you uncurled your body.  All the fear and panic were cried and screamed out of you.

With nothing else to do, you stood up and danced.  You twirled around the room, watching yourself in those mirrors.  The ribbons on your shoes fluttered as you spun.  You pirouetted and leapt for a nonexistent audience made up entirely of infinite Lapis Lazulis in the mirrors.

You danced until you started to black out.  Then, you let yourself fall gracefully to the floor.  You lay down on the hard wood, clenched your fists, and trembled from exertion.

Your eyes closed and you slipped away.

When you woke up on the hard floor, you wondered if you were trapped in some sort of dream.

Every muscle in your body hurt, and that felt very real.

But you couldn’t see a thing.

You tried to push yourself into a standing position, but you couldn’t move your exhausted, wrecked body.  You shivered and cried in the total darkness that was your entire existence.

You must have been there for hours before you stood up.  You felt yourself falling as soon as you stood, and threw your arms out to stop yourself.  Luckily, you met solid, supportive wall.

All of a sudden, the lights came on.  You gasped and blinked in the sudden brightness.  You shut your eyes just as the image of a person in front of you burned itself into your retinas.

You caught your breath and slowly squinted your eyes open.

You were right.

There was someone standing right there.

It was you.

You screamed, whirled around, and ran the other way.

Only to run into her again.

Lapis Lazuli, surrounding you on all sides.  Screaming with you.

You crouched down on the floor, shut your eyes, covered your ears, and screamed.

When your senses came to you, you remembered where you were.  How long were you there?  It must have been hours.  Why were the lights off?

Ah.  They must have been on a timer.  That meant that the studio was reopening.  People would be coming soon.

You told yourself that.  Over and over.

“Someone will come for you,” you told the Lapis in the mirror.  She nodded along with you in agreement.

Still, until the lights went off again, all you had for company was you.  You, wherever you turned.  Every direction you looked in stretched onto infinity.

And when you were plunged into darkness, all you could see was a slowly blinking red light on the ceiling.

You slipped in and out of consciousness, no longer hoping for rescue.

They found you after two whole days, on a Monday morning, soiled, sweaty, and screaming your head off.

**~ ~ ~**

“The strange gem shouted, _I’m Lapis Lazuli, and you can’t keep me trapped here anymore!”_

“Dun dun DUUUUN!”

“Lapis Lazuli split the waters and opened a pathway.”

This is all entirely self-indulgent.  But Steven enjoys every second of it.

You finishthe story with Steven healing you.  Perhaps in real life he didn’t exactly heal you with his spit.

Or maybe he did when you shook hands for the first time.

“Oh my gosh,” Steven breathes.  “You’re coming back, right?  I— Steven sees Lapis again, right?  She can’t be gone forever!”

“Of course she isn’t.  Lapis has existed for… millennia, probably.  She’s tough.  She can survive in space.  And… I don’t think she’ll ever forget the first friend she had in years.”

Steven grins. 

The days are getting shorter and shorter.  The sky is already dark by the time you leave. 

Garnet stops you on your way out, just outside the door.

“Listen,” she says, her voice low.  “There is something you should know.”

“Oh no.  Is it about Steven?”

“No.  It’s about the other universe.”

“The— the what?”

“Shh,” Garnet whispers.  “Listen.  Garnet is a fusion.”

“Wh-what?”

“Trust me on this.  But don’t tell Steven.  Not until the time is right.  Don’t spoil it for him.”

“A- a fusion of what?”

“In the story,” says Garnet.  “You will reveal it at the best time.  And you better make it good, or you’re not allowed here anymore.”

“O…kay, what kind of story do you have in mind?”

“That is up to you.”  Garnet puts a hand on your shoulder, then walks inside.

You’re left staring at the door, trying to make sense of what just happened.  Steven’s aunts may be unusual people, but Garnet is definitely the weirdest of the three.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Question I've gotten: "So what illness does Steven actually have?"  
> Answers I've given: "Food poisoning." "The common cold." "Plot Device." "The Fault in Our Stars."
> 
> All I know is that it's not fucking cancer.


	8. Be Wherever You Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven knows that he doesn't have much longer left to live, and tries to take responsibility.

"Who's that?"

You point to a framed photo hanging in the narrow hallway leading to Garnet Amethyst and Pearl's bedrooms.  The picture is a little faded.  It shows two teenage girls dressed in bright colors.  One girl dressed mostly in red with a ribbon tied over her afro has her arm around a puffy-lipped girl dressed entirely in blue.  They're both smiling.  And though they look nothing alike, they both somehow look exactly like Garnet.

"That's Ruby, and that's Sapphire," says Steven, pointing first to the red girl and then the blue one.  "They're Garnet's moms."

"Ah."  It clicks into place now.  One question is answered, but a few new ones arise now.  Is Garnet the biological child of only one of them, both of them, or is she adopted?  Garnet looks like such a perfect combination of both of them.

"Can you put Ruby and Sapphire in the story?" Steven asks.

You're not gonna spoil Garnet's big reveal.  "No.  Gems don't have mothers.  They come out of holes in the ground."

"But I'm a gem!  And I have a mother!  Oh, wait.... I guess even if they were Garnet's moms... they couldn't still be around."  He pauses.  "Because gem reproduction sucks."

"Yep."

You hear footsteps coming behind you and you turn to find Pearl walking primly toward you.  "Hello, Lapis," she says.  "So glad I caught you before you left.  Garnet, Amethyst and I are going to be out of town for a while next Saturday, do you think you could come and watch Steven?"

You give Pearl a blank look.  "How much am I getting paid?"

"Oh, well....  I haven't decided on a rate, how much do most of your friends usually get paid?"

"I was kidding," you say sheepishly.  Honestly, you weren't expecting to get paid for something you do nearly every day anyway.

“Well, I think something can still be arranged.  So are you free to babysit?"

"Ugh," Steven sighs, "don't say _babysit,_ I'm not a baby!"

"Sure.  Yeah, I'm free."

Wonderful."  Pearl claps her hands together.  "Now, if you'll excuse me..."  She slips past you into her room.

You grin at Steven.  Your grin fades when you see that he's not smiling back.  He's still looking at the picture of Ruby and Sapphire on the wall.  His expression is impossible to read.  "I wonder how much longer we'll be able to hang out like this," he says.

You really don't know what to say.  You never know how to feel when Steven is anything but optimistic.  It turns the world upside down.  "I'm gonna keep coming here as much as I can," you say.  "And... I've been making up a lot more stories.  There's plenty we can still do."

"Pearl and Garnet and Amethyst can't even leave the house for a few hours without worrying about me.  What's gonna happen to them when I'm gone?"

"Don't— don't say that."

“Why not?" he says angrily.  "No one wants to think about it, but it's all anyone _can_ think about!  I should have just grew up and you and Connie, and just... just avoided everyone!"  He clenches his fists at his sides.

You remember how you grew up.  Feeling like no one cared about you, and only the baby could ever understand you.  Feeling like you had died after losing your one friend.  It must be nice to have friends, you had thought.  "I wish we could switch places," you sigh.

For someone like Steven, it must be downright painful to have so many people care.  And for someone like you, well... maybe you needed that.  Maybe then, you wouldn't have desperately thrown yourself at the feet of the worst person ever.

Steven's shaking.  His breathing grows shallow.  It looks and sounds like he's holding back tears, but then he starts clutching the wall and wheezes hard.  "Uh... Steven?"

"I need— to lie down...." he pants.

He takes his hands off the wall, and starts to wobble away.  "D-do you need help?"  Without waiting for an answer, you get an arm around him and help him up the stairs.  By the time you get him to his bed, he's white as a sheet.  He clutches his chest through his shirt, squeezing the fabric between his fingers.

"Do you need me to get Pearl?" you ask frantically.

Steven nods.

You bound down the steps and hammer on Pearl's door.  The door just manages to avoid hitting you in the face and it swings open.  "WHAT IS IT?" Pearl shouts, her panicked face appearing in front of you.

 "I don't know, it looks like Steven's having some sort of attack—"

Pearl shoves past you and sprints to his room.  You follow quickly after her.

She runs to Steven and puts her arms around him.  "Steven," she says, her voice shaky, "can you breathe?  Sh-sh-should I get you—"

Steven puts a hand out, and Pearl abruptly shuts up.  He takes a few big gulps of air.

It seems like it was a very short attack.  He's okay now, but he's exhausted.  You decide that it's probably best to leave him alone.

You thought things were going well.  Steven certainly made it seem that way.  So much so that sometimes you forgot he was sick.

You have your violin with you.  You take it out and play for a while next to the ocean.  It's a shame that you didn't get to tell Steven any stories today.  You had some great new ideas. 

You close your eyes, as you usually do.  Steven has the right to be depressed sometimes.  He does get like this, very rarely.  He's usually bright and cheerful the next day.  He'll be fine.  You two will be able to spend the whole day together on Saturday.

You look forward to it for the rest of the week.  Thinking about getting paid to hang out with him puts you in such a good mood that you shock yourself into getting back an A on a test that you didn't even study for.

**~ ~ ~**

You show up on Saturday with your violin strapped to your back.  Pearl answers the door for you, smiling her usual patronizing teacher smile.  This is your first hopeful indicator that everything is fine.  "Howdy," Garnet says.  This is your second indicator.  You wait for one from Amethyst, but you don't see her anywhere.  Then she enters your line of vision, too busy scarfing down a burrito to say anything.

Alright, there is your third indicator.

“Now," says Pearl, "this isn't just a playdate.  We won't be there if anything... happens, so don't do anything rough with Steven.  Stay inside, and make sure he doesn't exert himself.  Here, I made you a schedule—"  Pearl hands you a piece of paper.  She has outlined a strict list of naptimes and mealtimes at fifteen minute intervals.

"I also left a list of emergency numbers on the wall over there."  She points right next to the door, and doesn't continue until she's satisfied that you have seen them.  "There's my number, Garnet's number, the hospital... you can see everything on the list.  I have everything clearly marked and color-coded so it should be very easy to read."

"Alright Pearl, we should really get going," says Garnet.

"Wait, let me finish.  In case Steven has trouble breathing, he has a portable breathing machine in his room—  Here, I'll show you."

She leads you up the stairs to Steven's room.  He's lying in bed on his side.  "Hey, Steven!" you say brightly.

He turns around sluggishly.  He's not smiling.  In fact, he looks miserable.  "It's right here, next to his bed," Pearl says.  "Excuse me, Lapis, I said it's right here."

"Oh."  You make sure Pearl can see you looking.

"Good.  Anyway, you have your driver’s license, right?"

"Uh.  Yeah."

"Okay.  We're going to go now.  Don't hesitate to call me if you have _any_ questions."

"Cmon, P, let's go!" Amethyst calls.

Pearl sighs, rubbing her forehead in frustration.  "There's plenty of food in the fridge if either of you get hungry," she says.

"Pearl, we aren't getting any younger," calls Garnet.

Pearl suddenly clasps your hands in hers.  "We're trusting you with our precious Steven," she breathes right in your face.

You flinch back a couple inches.  "O-okay.  Yeah, don't worry.  I got all that."

Pearl lets go of you and walks slowly down the steps.  Amethyst has to drag her out the door.  "See you, Steven!" Amethyst calls right before she slams the door.  She opens it again and calls, "And you too, Lapis!"

Now that they're gone, it's completely quiet.  You laugh nervously.  "Doesn't Pearl get annoying?"

"No.  She's my aunt and she loves me."

"Hm."

"Yeah she does.  She treats me like a baby more than anyone.  It kills her whenever anything happens to me."

You sit down at the foot of his bed, hoping you're welcome there.  You weren't expecting this from Steven at all.  His bad moods hardly ever lasted longer than a few hours.  Has he been this miserable since you last saw him?  "Steven, are you okay?"

"WHY WOULD I BE OKAY?" he shouts.  He coughs, and continues in a lower voice.  "I've been inside for days and I already played all my games at least six times!  I finished The Hairy Maker of Pots and.... I'm not gonna have anything new to read now.  Everything about this sucks!"

"I-I'm sorry," you say hesitantly.

"Why should _you_ be sorry?"  Steven throws up his hands in the air.  "None of this is your fault!  I saw you on the beach, thought you looked lonely, and decided to make friends with you.  Now you're hurting, too!  I never thought it would be a bad thing to have friends, but...."

He trails off.  You wait for him to start crying.  He just looks so hopeless.  You're not good at this sort of thing.  "I'm not gonna stop being your friend," you say.  "I... I like you, and I like hanging out with you.  Even if you're sick, you've... you've helped me.  You can't even imagine how much you've helped me.  You don't have to worry about hurting me."

"Thanks," Steven mutters.

Your face is reddening.  You have to change the topic before you embarrass yourself more.  "I'm not sure if it'll make you feel better... but I could tell you another story."  You smile at him hopefully.

"No thanks," Steven sighs.  "I'm tired."  He lies back down and pulls the covers up to his neck.  "I'd rather just take a nap."

You look at the piece of paper still in your hand.  Pearl hasn't scheduled a nap for another forty five minutes, but you nod resignedly at the back of Steven's head.  "Okay.  I'll be... right downstairs."

Steven doesn't answer.  You get up, taking your violin with you, and walk reluctantly down the stairs.  You sit down at the table, resting your head in your hands.

This was supposed to be a fun afternoon.  That was what you had planned.  You lied to Steven.  You are very, very hurt.  But it isn't Steven's fault.  It isn't his fault, and it isn't your fault.  It isn't anyone's fault except for the goddamn universe's.  You want to punch fate in the face.  You lie with your head on top of Pearl's schedule, wondering what you are going to do now.

You wait fifteen minutes, then go to check back on Steven.  He's still lying on his side, very still.  "Steven?" you call.  He groans and rolls over on his back.  He's asleep.

All you want to do now is go outside, stand by the water, and play your violin.  But you can't leave Steven alone, and you can't wake him up.

You sit yourself on the couch, absently grab the last Hairy Maker of Pots, and try to distract yourself with it.  But so many people in that series fucking die that it just brings you more pain.

A knocking at the door jars you from your reading.  You put the book gratefully down and go to answer it.

The girl who works at the big donut, Sadie, is standing in the doorway, holding a box in her hands.  You open the door quietly.  "Yes?"

"Is Steven home?" she asks.

"Yeah," you whisper, "but he's asleep."

"Oh.  Well, can you give him this?"  Sadie thrusts the cardboard box at you.  "Tell him it's from me and Lars."

"What is it?"

"Just a donut."

You open it just to make sure she's telling the truth.  Wonder of wonders, she wasn't lying.  "Okay.  I will."

You're about to go inside when Sadie steps forward.  "Wait.  I heard he's sick.  Is that true?"

So you weren't the only one who didn't know.  You carefully shut the door behind you.  You'll only be out here for a few minutes.  "Yeah."

"We hadn't seen him in over a month."  She sighs.  "I was getting worried.  This is really horrible."

"Yeah.  It's the worst."

"He doesn't deserve it."

"No.  He really doesn't."

"I can think of _so many people_ who do," Sadie says angrily.  "Why'd it have to happen to Steven?  It's so awful."

You lean against the door, folding your arms.  "I don't need convincing."

“How's he doing?" she asks.  "I bet he's in bed laughing and pretending everything's fine.  Knowing him."

"No.  He's been down in the dumps lately."  You close your eyes.  "I'm worried about him."

When you open your eyes you see that Sadie looks horrified.  "I guess..."  She bites her lip.  "Tell him to get well from us.  If that's even still possible.  I should really find the time to visit him when he's awake."

She starts to walk away, but stops on the first step.  "Steven means... so much to us.  I don't know how well you know him, but pretty much everyone in Beach City is his friend."

You join her on the first step and sit down.  Sadie sits beside you.  "I don't know what we're gonna do without him," she sighs.  "You know... he brought me and Lars together.  I mean, we were both working together, but you know... _together_ together."

She looks over at the water and laughs.  Her cheeks grow red.  "He used to call us married all the time and... I guess something about him got through even to Lars.  It was kind of embarrassing and..."  She pauses.  "I don't even know why I'm talking about this with you.  I'm sorry, I hope this isn't like... too much information."

"No.  I'm glad Steven helped you find love.  It's... good to be in a healthy relationship."

Sadie laughs.  "Relatively healthy," she says.  "Anyway, I should be getting back now.  Thanks for letting me ramble like that."  She stands up.  "See you around, Lapis.  It's... Lapis, right?"

"Yeah.  Like the gem."  You smile to yourself.

"It's a nice name."

You watch Sadie's retreating figure disappear down the beach.  You could have used her company for a little longer.  The air is cold, so you go back inside and return to The Deadly Hollow Bowls.

Connie's right.  The movie did screw up a lot of the details.  But it's hard to imagine Hormones as anything other than sexy after growing up with them.  You read through a few chapters, right through one of Pearl's scheduled mealtimes, wondering if you and Steven will get to hang out at all before his aunts come home.

From above your place on the couch, you hear Steven groan.  You go upstairs to check on him but find him either still asleep or pretending.

Pearl said there was plenty of food in the fridge if you got hungry, so you go into the kitchen for a snack.  On the fridge is another copy of Pearl's list of emergency phone numbers.  Scrawled at the bottom in different handwriting is "Amethyst's number," and underneath, in the same writing, "Greg's number."

You pull a cookie cat out of the freezer and start with the ears.  Just the way Steven does.

As you're eating, a sound wafts down to the kitchen.  The sound of muffled crying.

You put down your cookie cat and hurry to Steven's room.  You find him with his face burried in his pillow.  "Steven?"  He doesn't answer.  "I guess this is a stupid question, but what's wrong?"

He sits up.  "M-m-maybe it's _this,"_ he says, lifting up his shirt to reveal his gemless belly button.

"I thought so."

You wrack your brain trying to think of something comforting to say.  Suddenly, Steven's phone rings.  "Aren't you gonna answer that?"

Steven shrinks down.  He stares at the phone as though it's a dangerous creature until it stops ringing.  "Steven, what if it's Pearl?  Or your dad?"

"I know who it is," he says.

The phone rings again.  You pick it up.  "It's Connie," you say.

“Give me that!" Steven yells.

You hand over the phone.  Instead of answering it, Steven turns it off.

"What are you doing?"

"I can't talk to Connie anymore," Steven says.  He puts the phone back on his bedside table, next to his Cookie Cat clock.  "I can't talk to her ever again."

“Wh-why not?"

Steven's lip trembles.  "I-I told her I didn't wanna be friends anymore!"

Finally, he bursts out crying.  "Steven..."  You put your hands on his shaking shoulders.  You're worried that these wracking sobs could hurt him.  "Calm down, why would you do that?  Did you two get in a fight?"

"No!" Steven yells.  "Just the opposite!  Sh-she's always so nice, and— and she brings me stuff to read, and— I don't want her to get hurt anymore!"

"Whoa."  You wipe off some of the tears on his face with a finger.  "You told her you didn't want to be friends anymore... because you didn't want to hurt her?"

Steven sniffs.  "I can't help my aunts, or my dad.  I don't think I can get you away either.  It was my fault for coming after you.  But... I can save Connie."

"It's no one's _fault!"_ You grab a tissue and hand it to him to wipe his nose.  Snot is dripping right off his face.  "Don't be stupid.  Call her back, right now."

Steven groans.  He curls up on his side and burries himself underneath the covers.  "Call her back," you repeat.

"I can't," comes his muffled voice.  "I have to do the right thing.  Even if it's hard."

“This isn't the right thing!"

"Go away!"

"Steven..."

"Leave me alone, I know what I'm doing!"

You want to pick up the phone and call that girl back yourself, but this is something Steven needs to fix on his own.  You try to return to The Hairy Maker of Pots, but the sound of Steven's sobs are really distracting.  When another knock sounds at the door, you vaguely remember that you forgot to give Steven Sadie's donut.

It's Connie at the door this time.  Red-faced and dripping with tears.  You slouch over to the door and throw it open.  "I-is Steven—" she chokes.

"He's in his room," you answer.

Connie runs past you.  You don't follow her.  You wait on the couch.  "WHY DON'T YOU SAY THAT TO MY FACE?" she yells.  "JUST TELL ME TO MY FACE THAT YOU DON'T WANNA BE FRIENDS ANYMORE!"

Steven blubbers something that you can't make out from here.  You stand on the couch and poke your head above the floor of Steven's room.  You can just see Connie standing menacingly over Steven's bed.  "WELL, WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THAT?"

"I'm sorry, okay, Connie?  Please don't get mad."

"How much of an idiot do you have to be?!  What, did you think that even I stopped being friends with you, I could ever just forget about you like that?"

You slip back down before anyone can notice you and try to give them a moment of privacy.  You hear Steven choking out another apology, begging Connie to still be his friend.  His breathing sounds labored and shallow.  You're not sure whether this is because of his sobbing, or if he's having an attack, or if the sobbing could possibly cause an attack.

You poke your head back into the room and see Connie sitting on the bed with her arms around him.  "Steven... just tell me how you feel," she says.

Steven doesn't say anything.  Instead, he buries his face in her shoulder.  Connie sighs and rubs gentle circles into his back.  You leave the couch and sneak quietly to the kitchen so that they can have a moment alone.

Your Cookie Cat is melting on the table.  You nibble at it while you listen to snippets of tearful conversation from Steven's room.  You listen closely, until you hear something that sounds an awful lot like laughter.  You put the remains of your Cookie Cat back in the freezer and return back upstairs.

You're not sure how it happened, but they're both laughing.  "That— that's hilarious—!" Steven wheezes.  "Connie, tell Lapis what you just told me!"

"No way, it wasn't _that_ funny!"

"Glad to see you've smoothed things over," you say.  "Feel better, Steven?"

"Yeah," he says.  He smiles, but his face is still wet with tears.  "I— I'm glad I have you both.  You two... you're the best friends in the world."

Connie hugs him.  Steven reaches out an arm and pulls you into the hug.  You feel awkward being in a group hug with Connie, and stick close to Steven's side.

Steven prolongs the hug until you have to remove yourself because of the cramped position of your legs.  "Sorry I've been so moody," Steven says, wiping his face with the back of his hand.

"I don't think anyone blames you," says Connie.

"I think we'd be worried if you were happy all the time," you add.  "Oh, by the way, Sadie was here earlier.  She brought you a donut."

“Sadie was here?" Steven exclaims.  "Oh no, I haven't seen her in weeks, she and Lars must be—"

"Really worried," you finish.  "Sadie wants to come over sometime."

"Is Lars coming too?"

"He better," says Connie.  "Hey, you know what would make _me_ feel better?"  She looks at you.  Eyes smiling through her glasses.  "Lapis, can you tell us a story?  I've never heard you tell one before!"

"Oh.  Uh..."  Two expectant, shining faces grin at you.  You're not used to having an audience of more than just Steven.  But you're too relieved to see Steven happy that you can't bring yourself to ruin the mood.

You smile.  Connie and Steven shift their positions on the bed, sitting comfortably next to each other.  You begin.  "In this story, Steven becomes the warp master."

You had other ideas in mind, but instead, you make up a story on the spot about how the gem-Steven brought Lars and Sadie together on a beautiful island.

You dedicate this story to Sadie.  She's the first of Steven's friends that you have decided to like.

It's early in the evening when Steven's aunts come back.  The three of you are having such a good time that you didn't realize how many hours have passed.  But when Garnet walks through the door, Connie gasps and looks at the sky.  "Oh no, it's already dark out!  My parents are gonna kill me!"

"You better leave now," you say.

"Nooo," says Steven, "don't go yet!"

Pearl hurries up the steps, her face flushed and worried.  "Lapis, I didn't hear from you, so I assumed everything was okay."

"Oh.  Sorry, I guess I should have texted you."

"Everything's great!" says Steven.

"Thank _God._ Steven, I'm glad to see that you look better."

Amethyst joins Pearl on the landing.  "Yeah, you stopped moping."

_"Amethyst."_

"Did something good happen?"

"I feel something good coming!" Steven exclaims.  "Lapis, hand me my ukulele!  I made up a song for your new story!"

You and Connie race to the instrument, but you reach it first.  You hand it over to him and all four of you wait breathlessly.

Steven strums one chord and sings.  "Isn't this such, a beautiful night... we're underneath a thousand shining stars..."  You thought you would always stand by your promise that you would never play for anyone who knew who you were, unless they were Steven.  But you find yourself taking out your violin and joining in with your own musical accompaniment.

Steven smiles at you.  "Isn't it nice to find yourself somewhere different, whoa, why don't you let yourself just be wherever you are."

Garnet joins on the stairs to listen.  She is the first to clap when Steven’s song is finished.  Pearl bursts into tears and runs off to her room. 

“That was amazing!” Steven exclaims.  “Lapis, you finally played something for Connie!”

“You sound incredible,” Connie says shyly.  “I wish I were that talented.”

“We should do more duets like that,” says Steven.

“Yeah,” you say, nodding your head, smiling at your audience.  “Yeah, we should.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Four words that kill the potato: "Comment on Inferior Blue"  
> Honestly if you are considering whether or not to leave a comment do it. Leave the comment. I don't reply to all of them, but I see all of them, and they encourage me to keep going. Your comments kill me in a good way. Comment on my fanfiction. Comment on everyone's fanfiction. It will make writers happy and therefore make you feel good about yourselves.  
> Thank you. Have a good night. Zee-Zee loves you.  
> (if you have any questions or just want to talk about gay gems hmu on my tumblr im zeezeepearl)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amethyst reveals the details of her bond with Rose Quartz to Lapis while Steven's life hangs in the balance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this pretty late at night, so it's uneditted. I didn't even reread this so if I make any major changes I'll repost the chapter tomorrow. For now just bear with me and enjoy what you can.

It’s far too cold for you to practice by the ocean anymore.  You’re stuck playing your instruments inside, in the depressing darkness of your father’s apartment, where voices from the other side of the thin walls yell at you to shut up.  You also have the music room at school, but that isn’t available at night.

You miss the summer. 

You miss the warm weather, the sparkling waters, the clear blue sky, but most of all, you miss having a happy and healthy Beach Summer Fun Buddy.

Steven has been getting worse.  Surprisingly, you haven’t seen him quite as miserable since your one day of babysitting him.  But he stays in bed all day lately.  He needs the help of you or one of his aunts to get down the short flight of stairs to use the bathroom.  No one says anything, but you can feel it in the air inside that house.

No one expects him to last much longer.

If it were your choice, you would be spending every waking minute with him.  But something has woken you up to the fact that you have a future, and because you have a future, you’re going to have to take school a little more seriously.

With your usual distraction of the ocean gone, you start to finally crack down on your studies.  Maybe this is the year you’ll turn things around and become a good student.  You have a lot of work to catch up on, but you’re determined to raise your grades enough to get into a decent college.

If you even decide to go.

You weren’t sure what you were planning.  Working as a hotdog vender?  A street performer?  Street performer didn’t sound bad.  The idea of it appealed to you.  But then you saw yourself dressed all in black, performing in the pit of an orchestra.  The idea had glamour to it.

Enough glamour to make you take some time off from Steven to work a bit harder.

It was getting even harder and harder to visit him anyway, since he was often asleep when you came over. 

Maybe things were starting to turn around a little.  A girl in your music class blushed and told you that you sounded really good.  Peridot didn’t jump a foot in the air and shriek when she saw you in the hallway.  Instead, she scowled a half-scowl that didn’t alert any authorities to her side.

**~ ~ ~**

You were up all night cramming for a test that you had almost completely forgotten about.  You fell asleep at your desk, had a terrifyingly vivid dream, and screamed yourself awake.  You’re not sure why you screamed, because it honestly wasn’t that scary.  You remember waking up with such a great inspiration that you had to write down the entire dream.  You knew that it would make perfect story material.

Now that you’ve handed in the test, you squint at the folded piece of paper that you had tucked into your bra for safe keeping.  You remember feeling so greatly inspired, but you only see two words scrawled in childish, messy handwriting on the heavily folded paper.

_Watermelon Steven._

“What the fuck,” you whisper to the paper, “does that _mean?”_

It looks like Steven isn’t getting a story today, because you’re fresh out of ideas.  You’re exhausted and cranky when you get to his house.  “Where’ve you been?” Steven asks you.

“Ugh… busy….  Sorry I’ve been gone so long.”

“You look really tired.”

“I was up all night.  Remember how I said school sucks?”  You’re sad to tell him that you don’t have a story for today after you’ve been away for so many days.  You should have spent all that time doing research.

“That’s okay, Lapis!” Steven says cheerfully.  “Today, I have a story for _you!”_

“Oh.  You made your own?”

“Yeah.  I wanted to make up one about you, but I figured you had your own plans.”

“So what’s your story about?”

“It’s about Garnet!”

Steven tells you the story of Garnet the gem, and what she does while she’s out.  You learn that she apparently has secret animal friends and is fueled by her love for Steven.  He clearly has a lot of respect for her.  She punches mountains effortlessly in half.

Steven’s storytelling is just like his music.  Not perfect, but full of animated innocence and excitement.  Just like his songs, it makes you happy to listen to him.

Even though the story really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

You’re both having a fun time until you realize that this is indeed a story.  “I wish I was actually a crystal gem,” Steven says wistfully, staring at the ceiling.

“I’m sorry,” is all you can think to say.

Steven huffs in annoyance.  “It’s not your—”

“Not my fault!  I know.  I just wish I had a way to make this world real.”

“Even though you’ve spent thousands of years trapped in a mirror?”

“I’d take that over my own life sometimes,” you say.

Steven is silent for a moment.  “I don’t know much about your life,” he finally says.  “You know mostly everything about mine.  But I don’t know the first thing about you.  Besides for the fact that you play pretty instruments and your hair isn’t naturally blue.”

“There isn’t much to know,” you lie.  “I dyed my hair because without it, I’d be pretty boring.”

“Are you _kidding me?”_

“Yeah.  My music and my hair make up for a lack of a personality.”

Steven looks personally offended.  “Okay, _first of all—“_   Steven starts counting on his fingers, “that day you were stomping around the beach beatboxing with the flute, that was _not_ boring!  Second, you’re really funny.  Third, you’re creative enough to make up an entire world!  Fourth—I can’t even go on!  Lapis Lazuli, you are a lot of things but you are _not_ boring.”

You laugh.  “Steven, I was kidding.  I know I’m a riot.”

“Remember that time we were asking each other Getting To Know You questions?  Tell me five things about yourself that I don’t know yet.  I don’t know you well enough.”

“Okay.”  You think about five things you can say about yourself that won’t make Steven horrified of you.  “I used to take dance classes.”  You tick off one finger.  “I was really good at it.  I live with my dad.  I love water—”

“But you won’t go swimming.”

“Nope.  I moved to Beach City when I was… seven.  Or eight.  I…”  You pause.  It’s time to open up to him a little.  “I have three younger siblings.”

“Really?” Steven exclaims.

“Yeah, but I haven’t seen any of them in… years.  Come to think of it… my youngest brother… He’d be about your age by now.”

Something in your chest tightens and threatens to burst.  You never even thought about the fact that your brother wasn’t a baby anymore.  He probably doesn’t even remember you.  You hang your head to let your bangs cover your eyes, which threaten to leak.  “I… I don’t even know what he looks like.”

“I bet he looks just like you,” Steven says.  “Natural blue hair and all.  I bet he likes to wear ribbons and sundresses too.”

You want to hug him.  Instead you wipe your eyes.  “Well, that’s five things.  Do you think you know me better now?”

“A little,” he says.  “I guess… I can tell now why you looked so sad and lonely when you played the violin on the beach.”

You don’t respond.  You still haven’t even scratched the bare surface of your past.  And you enjoy your friendship with Steven, so you vow that you never will.  He doesn’t need to know.  “Well, let’s put that sad crap aside for now.”

Steven gasps.  “You said crap.”

“Well… is Pearl anywhere?”

“I don’t think so.”  Steven looks around, peering into the kitchen and whatever parts of the house he can see from up here.  “Nope, unless she’s in her room.  We’re alone.”  He giggles, leans close to you, and whispers, _“Fuuuuuuuck….”_

You snort.  “You can do better than that.”

Steven frowns.  “What word is worse than ‘fuck’?”

“I can tell you,” you say, “as long as you promise not to tell any of your aunts that I told you.  Not even Amethyst.”

Steven nods.  You grin mischievously, cup your hand to your mouth, and bring your face up to Steven’s ear.  He leans in eagerly.  You take a deep breath and let out a loud belch.

“Oh, ha ha!” Steven yells angrily, pulling away.  “That’s so funny, Lapis!  Hilarious!  Yeah, just keep laughing!”

You fall off the bed howling.

**~ ~ ~**

You warned Steven that you had a performance coming up, so that he’d know why you were gone.  “Can I go?” he asked you.

“I… I don’t know.”

“I wanna see it!”

“I’ll record it for you if you can’t come.”

You showed Steven a video of practice.  “You all sound so nice when you play together,” he said.

You weren’t planning to become so preoccupied.  But you stay after school every day to practice.  Your music has become first priority again.  A couple kids in your music class are new, and didn’t know you well enough to be scared of you yet.  You’re positive at this point that the girl on the clarinet is flirting with you.  “Blue is my favorite color,” she tells you unnecessarily.

“Mine too,” you reply.

You don’t know if Steven’s coming.  You haven’t asked, and he hasn’t gotten back to you.

It happens one week that you nearly forget about Steven’s existence entirely.

Practice has been grueling.  The good kind of grueling that leaves you distracted and busy.  Your music class can hardly sound good together when the clarinet player is too busy making shifty eyes at you to focus.  It’s actually getting really annoying.

Mid December finally brings the first snow of the season.  Your father’s apartment is freezing.  The music class’s performance is in only three days and practice is all that’s on your mind.

You wake up on the day of the first snow, wade through the growing mess on the floor, and look despondently at your sundresses before picking out your only turtleneck that holds unpleasant memories.  You put it on, reasoning with yourself that nearly everything holds unpleasant memories for you now, including household reflective objects.  You can deal with wearing the turtleneck that you wore the day after you lost your virginity.

You throw a heavy jacket on top of your unpleasantly heavy outfit and head out into the freezing air to your car.

When you’re alone, walking peacefully outside, you’re fascinated by the snow.  After all, it’s just icy water filled with air.  But when you’re driving through it, it’s much less pleasant.

School is a bore, as it always is.  Music class is the last class of the day, as it always is.  You stay after school, as you always do lately.

The worst thing about the winter, especially this time of winter, is that by the time you leave school, it’s already getting dark out.

So dark that you almost don’t see anyone standing right outside the building.  The sound of footsteps crunching in the snow alerts you to the presence of another person, along with the soft call of, “Hey, Lapis…”

You don’t believe what you hear.  You must have imagined that voice.  You turn around to just to make sure.

You freeze in your tracks.  That’s definitely Steven stumbling toward you.  You rush down the stairs to meet him.  “Steven, what are you doing here?!”

He smiles weakly at you.  “I… I wanted to hear a real music class.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve been here that long!”

He keels forward.  You catch him in your arms, holding him up.  “My class ended hours ago!  How long have you been here?”

“M-m-maybe about that long.”

“Oh god, you’re freezing!  Hang on, we have to get you inside—”

Steven holds tight to your arm.  His body seizes up, his grip slips, and he falls to his knees in the snow.  He’s gasping for air.  You whirl around, spinning in circles, then get a grip on yourself.  You kneel on the ground in front of Steven.  You take his face in your hands (his skin is ice-cold) and tilt up his head to look at him in the eyes.  He’s so awfully pale and cold that his skin has a bluish tinge to it.  “Steven.  Please, say something.  Why did you come all the way out here?”

“I—I’m s-sorry, Lapis…”

“Shh.  Don’t worry.  I’ve got you.”  You get your arms back around him and lift him over your shoulder.  “I’m taking you home.” 

Seriously, what was he thinking?  You carry him to your car, throw the door open, and lower him into the passenger’s seat.  You run around to the other side and jump in the car.  Next to you, you hear and awful sniffle. 

“We’re going.  I’ll have you home in just a few minutes.”

“Lapis… what about your violin…?”

You realize that you had dropped it when you went to pick up Steven.  “It doesn’t matter.  I’ll go back for it.”

“Please…” Steven pleads.  Then he starts gasping like a fish out of water.  “C-can’t—breathe—”

“Calm down, calm down….”  You reach for your keys.  “The gems—your aunts, they’ll know what to do—”

They’re not there.  They’re not anywhere.  _“SHIT!”_ you scream.

Steven jumps in his seat.  “I left my keys inside!  Hang on, Steven, I’ll be _right back.”_

You run, back into the building, skidding down corners until you reach your classroom.  You find your schoolbag lying on a chair, snag it, and leave as fast as you came in.  You hurry back to the car, frantically pressing the unlock button on your keys even though the door is already open.  You throw open the door, flinging yourself back into the driver’s seat.

The smell of vomit reaches your nose before you see him covered in it.  Steven is staring ahead, pale-faced, dripping with cold sweat, and gasping for air.  “Oh no,” you whisper.  “Oh god…”

You can’t waste another second panicking.  You start up the ignition and speed out the parking lot.  “L-Lapis,” Steven croaks.  “Do you—have a tissue?”

“I don’t know—check the glove compartment.”

As he fumbles with the glove compartment, you hear his breathing start to ease up a little.  But he’s trembling like a leaf.  He can’t get it open.  But you can’t stop to help him.

His breathing quickens again, and you have to force yourself to keep your eyes on the road when he heaves and vomits all over himself again.  At a traffic light, you try to keep yourself calm and turn safely at the intersection.

Steven is making horrible whimpering sounds in the seat next to you.  "It's gonna be okay," you say, to yourself as much as to him.

"Lapis..." he groans.  "You're... going... the wrong way...."

"I'm not going to the beach," you tell him.  "I'm taking you to the emergency room."

“Nnnnngh..."

You're shaking, but not nearly as bad as Steven.  The stench and the panic makes you want to hurl yourself, but you can't.  You can't afford to.  Only at red lights do you allow yourself a glance at him.  Tears leak with sweat down his face.  You work hard to keep your breathing under control until you arrive safely.

There aren't any parking spaces close enough to the hospital.  You part as close as you can.  As soon as you're parked, you run around to the other side, strip Steven of his puke-covered jacket, and wrap him up in your own heavy coat.

"Steven... we're here.  Steven, can you hear me?"

He doesn't answer you.  You lift him out of the car and rush him inside.

He passes out in your arms somewhere along the way.  You're surprised he made it this long.  You watch him until doctors take him away to take care of him, then your knees buckle under you.

You drag yourself to a chair and look at the list of contacts on your phone.  You have Garnet, Pearl, Amethyst and Greg's numbers in your phone from the contact list that Pearl left you.  You wrack your brain wondering who to call.  Pearl would probably have a heart attack, so you cross her out in your head.  Garnet still weirds you out, and Amethyst is a jerk, but maybe if you tell her that Steven is dying she'll take you seriously enough to not say something obnoxious.

You toggle through your options until your sanity bursts and you decide to call Amethyst.

Strangely, you seem to have forgotten your fear of calling people.

Amethysts answers before you get the chance to speak.  "Lapis, it's you!  Please tell me you know where Steven is!"

"Yeah.  He... he came to— Oh god, no, the story doesn't matter... he— Steven— he had a really bad attack and I drove him to the hospital.  He was— He was in really bad shape—"

You think you're having some awful attack yourself.  You can barely speak.

"We're coming.  Right now," Amethyst says.

"O-okay."

It's an agonizing wait until the three of them arrive.  All of them wear some degree of panic on their expressions.  Garnet's, of course, is the most mild, while Pearl's facial features are so exaggerated they look like they're about to fall off.

Garnet reaches you and takes you gently by the shoulders.  "Lapis," she says firmly.  "Tell us what happened."

"He...."

"It's okay.  Breathe."

Garnet sits beside you and puts a hand on your back.  You take a deep breath.  Amethyst sits down on your other side, and Pearl sits next to Garnet.  "Steven... came to visit me at school.  But I swear, I didn't invite him!  He was just... standing outside.  He must have been there for hours.  Anyway, I came out, and he... he sorta collapsed and had trouble breathing, so I brought him to my car.  Then he..."  You blink back tears and try to catch your breath again.  "He started vomiting and.... and he fainted while I was carrying him in."

Pearl gasps and clutches Garnet's arm.  "Thank you for telling us," says Garnet.  "And thank you for bringing him here."

Garnet squeezes your shoulder.  She stands up.  She walks away, you can only suppose that she's going to ask a doctor what's happening with Steven, and Pearl jumps up to follow her so that she can keep holding onto her arm.

You're left sitting next to Amethyst.  It seems like you're both fine not saying a word to each other.  Not until Garnet comes back and says, "They're doing their best.  I don't know what's gonna happen.  We're just gonna have to wait."

She sinks down into a chair and reaches behind her shades to rub her eyes.  "So... we don't know if he's going to be okay?" Amethyst asks.

Garnet shakes her head.  Pearl's hand flies to her mouth.

You think you cry a little.  It's hard to really pay attention to anything that's going on around you while you wait.  Pearl is the first to break the silence.  "Should we ask them again?" she says in a small voice.

"It won't make a difference.  We have to wait."

Pearl's mouth trembles.  She blinks fast, then suddenly, she bursts out in loud, ugly sobbing.  Garnet sighs, takes her by the arm, and leads her out of the waiting room.

You wanted to start sobbing yourself, but now that you hear Pearl's sobs echoing through the hallway, this suddenly seems like the completely inappropriate time to do so.  A part of you even hates Pearl for making sounds like that.

You sit in silence for a moment until Amethyst brings you back to reality.  "Ugh," she mutters, "I hate it when she gets like this."

"H-huh?"

"Pearl," Amethyst scoffs.  "Acting like she's the only one who cares when bad stuff happens...  Treating Garnet like a stuffed animal and me like I don't even exist..."

"She's just worried."

"Yeah yeah, except she's _always_ worried!  Like, Steven might be dying, I get that.  But does she have to be so obnoxious about it?"

Your annoyance at Pearl evaporates and you glare wordlessly at Amethyst.  "Okay, I know what you're thinking," she says.  "Amethyst's an asshole, I get it.  You're right.  Go ahead and get mad at me for being a total bitch.  That's what I am.  I'm a useless waste of space.  Just a huge, obnoxious bitch who hates Pearl's panic attacks and only cares about herself."

"Yeah."  You might as well agree with her.  "You do sound like a bitch right now."

"Might as well act the part as long as I can't help it," Amethyst mumbles, crossing her arms.  "But seriously, don't you hate it, too?  Honestly, that fifteen minute schedule?  You'd think I was just exaggerating, but you know I'm not!  She's just a self-righteous prick who wants to be Steven's new mother."

"Where's all this coming from?" you ask.

"I'm panicked, and this is how I deal!  It's better than throwing a tantrum and clinging onto Garnet, isn't it?  At least I'm quieter."  Amethyst sighs.  "She didn't used to be this bad.  She only started freaking out like this after Rose died."

"How..." you begin.  "How... did Rose Quartz die?"

Amethyst laughs humorlessly.  "You really wanna hear the answer?"

"Yes," you say, but now you're scared to hear.

"Childbirth."

The pit of your stomach seems to disappear.  "You mean... with Steven...?"

"Nooo, her _other_ kid that we half-adopted!  Yeah, it was Steven.  Just like in your story, right?"

"I... I didn't know," you say.  "That... that's horrible."  You close your eyes, feeling awful about all your stories now.  You didn't know that Rose did literally give up her life for him.  But this is different.  Your eyes snap open when you realize how much worse it really is.  "Oh god, how does Steven feel about this?"

"You mean the fact he's gonna die after his mom died for him?" Amethyst asks.  Her question stabs you like a knife.  "I don't know, he's never brought it up before.  And hell if I'm gonna be the first to ask him."

You can't even cry it's so horrible.  "I really had no idea.  How does he... does he even know how much he's going through?  When I met him, I would have never guessed..."

"That's just Steven," Amethyst says with a shrug.  "He doesn't like to make people worry about him.  He's... just like his mom.  They both just wanted to take care of people."  Amethyst smiles sadly.  "He spends most of his time telling Pearl everything's okay instead of Pearl... ya know, doing her job."

"What was Rose like?" you find yourself asking.  "It sounds like you were all really close.  Like sisters."

"Yeah, something like that."  Amethyst shrugs again.  "It's hard to describe her.  She was like... a really big Steven who... reached out to everyone.  Y'know, she..."  Amethyst pauses for a long time.  "If it weren't for her....  I don't know where I'd be.  A long time ago, back when I was still a little squirt, I used to live on the streets."

Amethyst sounds more like she's talking to herself than to you at this point.  But you listen, secretly because you're thinking that this is going to make great story material.

“She took me in when I was homeless and nameless.  I mean, she literally plucked me out of a hole in the ground.  Then, she took me back and gave me a name to match the rest of her rock-squad...  I never understood why.  I didn't really feel like I fit in, yknow?  One day, she showed me a real amethyst.  I asked why she wanted to show me an ugly rock, but then she cracked it open.  She said that amethysts were precious stones that were hidden, and.... since life was tough for me, she said that I was already cracked open.  I just needed to be polished.  All deep and metaphorical bullshitty stuff but... it made me feel better."

"Did Pearl and Garnet accept you?" you ask, thinking again about your stories.

"Yeah, they were nice enough.  They were a bit uneasy about me at first, but Pearl... she treated me good.  Back when Rose was around, she was fine...."  She pauses again.  "I guess Rose was... more of a mom than a sister.  So I can't help but treat Steven like a little brother sometimes.  I mean, I think he's got enough moms to deal with."

"Life gave him a fair trade," you say.  "One mom in exchange for three."

"I wouldn't call the rest of what life's given him _fair."_

You want to know more about Rose.  You haven't really given her a personality in any of your stories.  Your heart clenches when it occurs to you that you might not even get to tell any more.  "So... what was everyone else like with Rose?"

"Well, we all loved her," Amethyst says.  "But Pearl _worshipped_ her.  And now she thinks she was closer to Rose than anyone else, and I couldn't _begin_ to understand her pain."

"Maybe you just have different ways of dealing," you suggest.

"And _my_ way includes bitching about Pearl behind her back," Amethyst hisses.  "If you think her way of dealing is just _different,_ then I'd like to see you go ahead and fuse with her."  She snorts.  "Kind of a weird, messed up idea, man.  Still not over it."

"I-it's just a story!  Besides, you did it to save Steven!  Can't you two cooperate on that?"

"To save Steven," Amethyst says, "I'd do anything.  Even if it meant spending the rest of my life fused with Pearl into one giant freaky purplish monstrosity."

 _How noble of you,_ you think.  You can't help but marvel over how happy-go-lucky you thought Steven's life must have been.  How you thought of his aunts as weird and alien but never tragic.  Still, the thing about the amethyst gets you thinking.  Being a precious gem that life just needs to crack open.

Why the hell did it have to happen that way?  Why did the most beautiful things have to be broken?  Who made up those rules?  "Oh, look," Amethyst mutters.  "Check out who's back."

Pearl is still clutching Garnet's arm.  She sniffles into a tissue as she comes back and sits quietly back down.

"We still have to wait for more news," Garnet announces.

Well, that was no news at all.  You all continue to wait in silence again.  Amethyst has the shame to look slightly embarrassed about all she let out in the past several minutes, but she shoots a glare at Pearl every time she sniffles.  Garnet doesn't move.  You shift your position, clenching and unclenching your fists in your lap, thinking more than ever that all this story-gathering is going to be completely useless.

Finally, after what has to be at least an hour, Garnet breaks the silence.  "We could be waiting here all night," she says.  "Lapis, you should go home."

"I'm not leaving."

"I thought you would say that."

And so, you wait.  The minutes tick by, and you find yourself dozing off.  You wake up with your head on Amethyst's shoulder.  You jerk yourself awake and return to an upright position.  But the look Amethyst gives you somehow tells you that you can return to her shoulder whenever you want to.

You feel like an interloper in this situation.  Especially when you're sitting right in the middle of Rose's rock squad.  You don't really belong here.  This waiting room is exclusively for Steven's aunts.

The sky outside grows light before a doctor comes over and tells you all something that you don't really understand.  But it makes Pearl gasp and cover her mouth again.  The bottom drops out of your stomach.  "No...." you whisper.

"Say that again, in plain English," says Garnet to the doctor.  "So the others can understand."

The doctor waits for Pearl to calm down.  She's in some delirious state of hysteria, laughing quietly into her tissue.  "He's still on the critical list, but we've got him breathing on his own again."

Amethyst leans over you and stares.

"Er," the doctor adds, "he's going to be okay."

Next thing you know, Amethyst has her arms around you and now it's her sobbing into your shoulder while Pearl continues laughing.

You're flying.  Your heart is soaring and you throw your arms back around Amethyst and find yourself giggling too.  "You're such a hypocrite," you whisper to her between tears.

"I know," Amethyst sobs.

**~ ~ ~**

Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl stayed at the hospital.  But you're satisfied with Amethyst's promise that she'll tell you the second he wakes up.  You trust her now.

Driving recklessly is something that you've always had the urge to do, especially in the situation you found yourself in earlier that night.  But as usual, you drive carefully.

Interestingly, you’re a pretty good driver.

You taught yourself.  It was easy enough to learn.

It was very important for you to be careful.  If the police ever pulled you over, they would find out that you didn’t have a license.

Further investigation would definitely get you sent you to jail.

The car wasn’t yours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so fucking tired.  
> Amethyst is my new favorite character ever to write. Garnet's also fun and god i know there was a lot I wanted to say but it's all slipping my mind now.  
> yall thought steven was gonna die didnt you. nope life will still go on just... ugh fuck i cant keep myself awake.
> 
> I appreciate your comments so much guys.  
> Thank you all. From the bottom of my shallow heart. Which isn't very deep but still it's the bottom.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis begins to think that Steven is better off without her and her stories. Steven and literally everyone else disagree.

Your sleep far into the afternoon, and when you wake up to catch whatever school you can still make it to, your relief turns into panic and then to exhaustion.  You barely have the energy to play your violin, and the next time Clarinet girl compliments you, you get the urge to punch her in the face.

You keep compulsively checking your phone, hoping for some word from Amethyst. _It’s been less than twenty four hours,_ you tell yourself.  _Most likely, nothing’s changed._   Still, you leave her a text.

_To: Amethyst  
hows steven??_

The response comes immediately:

_From: Amethyst  
hes still out of it but he woke up for a few minutes earlier_

The next text tells you:

_From: Amethyst  
he wanted us to tell you thanks for driving him to the hospital_

_well tell him youre welcome,_ you write.

_yeah. sure thing._

It sounds like Steven is going to be okay, and ready to hear more stories when he wakes up.  You have lots to make up for.  Mostly, you’re thinking about Amethyst.  But you have a lot of other ideas as well.

They keep flooding in to your exhausted brain.

You text Amethyst again that evening and learn that nothing’s changed yet.

 _do you know why he snuck out?_ she asks you.

_To: Amethyst_

_he must have really wanted to hear my music class i guess. i don’t really know maybe he wasnt completely himself_

_From: Amethyst  
maybe he was hallucinating_

_To: Amethyst  
??? does he do that?_

_From: Amethyst  
sometimes. its p freaky but ur not ever around when it happens_

_To: Amethyst  
!?_

_From: Amethyst  
idk only when it gets rlly bad. i think he thought he was actually a crystal gem once or twice and tried to shoot shields and shit out of his bellybutton_

You feel sick.  You sink onto your mattress and imagine Steven being his usual adorable self but actually believing that your stories were real. 

_To: Amethyst  
thats really disturbing please tell me youre kidding_

_From: Amethyst  
wish i was girl. dont like freak out about it tho srsly keep telling ur cute crystal gem stories_

You don’t know if you can.  You appreciate Amethyst’s honesty but you really wish she would have kept that to herself.  You don’t want to think about such a dark scene. 

You can’t believe you had such an easy time sleeping yesterday.  Tonight, you can’t sleep at all. 

It affects your performance the next day.  You can barely hold your violin.  Practice goes on hours after school is over, and for once, you just want to stop playing and lie down.

But the recital is tomorrow.

You remember your promise to record it for Steven.  But you can you ask?  You take it upon yourself to ask the music teacher if he’s already asked someone.

After practice is over, you collect your violin and prepare to leave.  On your way out, you change your mind and return to the music room.  It’s the only distraction you have.

A few minutes into practicing, the clarinet girl runs into the room, looking extremely flustered.  “I forgot my clarinet,” she says softly.  “Hey, why do you always stay every day?  Don’t you get tired of school?”

You’re annoyed at the interruption.  “I don’t have anywhere else to practice.”

“Let’s stay together.  I need to work on my part.  Think you could help me out?”

“I don’t play the clarinet.”

“But you play like, _everything_ else.”

“Guess I just never picked it up.”

You stare the girl down until she leaves.  But she’s forgotten her clarinet again, and she scurries back in, and once she has her instrument in her hand, she slowly walks over to you.

You put down the violin.  She’s close enough that you can count every freckle on her face.  You’re exhausted, you really are, and that’s what you blame this moment on.  It’s exhaustion, and stress, and next thing you know her mouth is on top of yours and you’re kissing her back with the kind of intensity you’ve nearly forgotten about.

God, if feels good.

The clarinet girl doesn’t make any excuses for her sudden escape.  You’re glad to see her go.  You’re glad to pick up your violin and continue like nothing happened.

The door bursts open yet again, and this time you’re ready to strangle her.  But it’s not the clarinet girl who stands in the doorway.

She points at you, horror and accusation in every line of her angular face.  “You—I saw you!”

“That you did, Peridorito,” you sigh.

Of all people, Peridot was the last person you were willing to deal with right now.

Well, second to last person.

“How—” she stammers, “how many girls are you planning to drown until you’ve fed whatever monster that you need to feed at the bottom of the ocean?”

“It was a lake,” you say.  “And who’s to say the monster isn’t me.”

“Right.  You _ate_ Jasper.”

“I like my girls beefier, but I take what I can get.”

“STOP IT!” Peridot yells.  “I’ll report this!  The teachers at this school _know_ you’re not safe!”

Of all the shit you feel like dealing with….  You saunter over to Peridot, feeling ready to rip the prosthetic fingers right out of her stupid plastic hands.  Peridot stands her ground.  “Why don’t you come in.  I could use some company of more edible young females.”

“Ha.  No one’s gonna buy that.”

You approach her, circling her slowly like she’s your prey and you’re a lioness ready to rip into a bitch.  “What are you doing here so late, anyway?”

“Th-that’s none of your business.”

“Let me guess.  You’d tell people it was for some nerdy computer project, but really, you stayed here for the same reason as Miss Clarinet.  You just want a piece of this freaky water witch.”

You grab hold of her artificial wrists and pull her into the room.  She lets out a satisfying little squeak.  “Listen, Peridot,” you whisper, drawing lines on her olive-colored jawline, “unless you wanna be my next victim, you better shut up and keep everything to yourself.  Your bodyguard isn’t gonna come after me to save your neck.”

“Wh-what are you,” she mutters, “some sort of… some kind of _siren?”_

“That’s exactly what I am.  Now, mind your own fucking business.  I’ll go preying on whoever I want.  No one’s safe from me.”

Peridot pushes your hand away.  “Too melodramatic,” she hisses.  “It stopped being scary.”

“Get out.”

Peridot has the nerve to glare at you with one more threat of reporting all your sins.  You pick up your violin, knowing you have nothing to be afraid of.  Peridot wouldn’t dare.  Besides, what did she have to report?  That you kissed a girl in the music room?  There were worse things you could be doing.

You wonder how she would react to learning that in your stories, she was a triangle-shaped robotic green gem.

You couldn’t ignore that peridot was a type of gem any longer, so you added her to your universe.

**~ ~ ~**

The music performance comes and goes, and you can’t believe how important this was to you a few days ago.  While you play, all you can think about is that Amethyst hasn’t texted you yet today.  Steven still hasn’t woken up since he briefly thanked Amethyst for you.  Your teacher has promised to send you a recording.  You don’t know who’s making it.

After it’s over, the clarinet girl doesn’t rush to you.  Maybe she’s shy, you think, but instead of purposely leaving her clarinet in the room, she looks away whenever you catch her eye.  It would be so easy to pretend that yesterday didn’t happen, but you feel just a little bad for her.  Maybe she’s upset at your lack of reciprocation.  You find her, tap her on the shoulder, and she turns around with a start.

“Hey,” you say, “you were pretty good today.  I see you fixed your mistakes.”

Her gaze shifts around the room, looking anywhere but you.  “I have to go,” she says softly.

“Oh.”

You catch her later whispering to a couple of her friends.  “Seriously?” one of them says.  _“Lapis Lazuli?_ Do you even know who she is?”

“I guess I didn’t!  I wouldn’t have thought… she looked so nice!”

“Dude.  She’s _evil.”_

“Of all girls you coulda macked on you chose _Water Witch.”_

“I admire your courage and stupidity.”

“Oh god, what should I do?”

You pull your hood over your head to conceal your hair, and sneak your way over to them.  “Move to Peru,” you whisper in her ear.  “Leave now and change your name.”

You duck back into the crowd before she has the chance to scream. 

So you lost the clarinet girl.  Big deal.  She was tiny and shy and probably would have made a loving romantic partner.  It wasn’t like you had sworn off love forever, because you have never actually experienced it.  Still, it was probably best for both of you.

The video that the teacher sends you is one of shitty quality.  After everything else that has happened, it shouldn’t leave a dent on your mood.  But just watching it makes you want to cry.

_To: Amethyst  
i got the video of my recital. do you think steven will be able to see it any time soon?_

_From: Amethyst  
hes been out of it for days now so maybe_

_From: Amethyst  
pearls with him rn_

_From: Amethyst  
im sorry he missed it garnet was gonna take him to see it_

_To: Amethyst  
really?  he didn’t tell me_

_From: Amethyst:  
he wanted to surprise you_

“So why the hell did you decide to show up early?” you ask your phone.

Amethyst can’t answer that question.  She doesn’t know any more than you do.  She can’t answer a single question that you have—Why Steven snuck out to visit you, when he’s going to wake up, how much longer he’s got left….

Every other problem is driven from your mind until the next day, when you hear the clarinet girl actually arguing with the teacher about wanting to drop out of music class.  “I just… I don’t think I’m that good.”

“I don’t understand why you’re saying that,” the violin teacher says.  “Did something happen recently?”

The clarinet girl only giggles. 

Either she’s mortified, terrified, or both.

She seems like a nice girl, and no one even knows the full details of your life.  So you place your bet at mostly mortified.

Maybe even a little ashamed.

You’re so sick and tired of her, and you’re sick and tired of the violin in general.  You brought your flute, so you play that instead.

You play it until you’re short of breath and nearly faint on the drive home.

You drive down familiar roads, tired and anxious, thinking that maybe today you’ll take a lukewarm shower instead of a cold one.  You turn a corner near your apartment when your phone rings.

You fumble one-handed through your bag to see who’s calling you.  You grumble at your screen and look at the name flashing across it.

You swear time stops for a second.  The world lurches, your body freezes, and you nearly crash a car into an oncoming motorcycle.  You take a deep breath and pull your car over to the side of the road. 

Why would Amethyst be calling you?  She’s only ever texted you before, what does she need to say out loud that she can’t say in a text?  You don’t want to answer it, you don’t want to hear the bad news, you really can’t take it right now—

You can barely get yourself to stop shaking enough to slide the green button on the touch screen to answer your phone.  “H-hello?” you choke out.

“Hi…”

That’s not Amethyst’s voice.  “Wh-who is this?”

“It’s meeee.”

You can see that starry-eyed grin.  And the weak, raspy voice at the other end sounds vaguely like—

“Steven?!”

“Surpriiiiise….”

“Oh my god—” 

Steven giggles so quietly that you can hardly hear him.  Your eyes sting, and you let out an involuntary sob.  “Lapis… what’s wrong…?”

“Do you _know_ how long you’ve been out?”

“Uhh… since yesterday?”

You hear Amethyst’s voice speak up faintly— “Dude, you were out for four days.”

“Four days?” Steven squeaks.  “Oh no… Lapis… did I miss—”

“I got it all on camera,” you say.  “Steven…. Oh god.  How are you feeling?  Wait, wait there.  One moment.”

You wait with him on the other line while you drive one-handed to park in front of your apartment.  “Alright.  Talk to me.”

“I’m actually… not supposed to talk right now,” Steven says weakly.  “But—I wanted to talk to you.”

“Th-then don’t talk!”

“But I wanted… to say thank you….  For, you know… saving my life and—and getting me to the hospital.”

“Steven, you already said that.”

“I did…?”

“Yeah.  You probably don’t remember.  I mean, I wasn’t there, but Amethyst told me you woke up for a few minutes and wanted to tell me that.”

“Oh,” Steven says.  “Well, that was very thoughtful of me.”

“Yeah,” you laugh, “you’re a true gentleman.”

“Alright, Steven, time’s up,” Amethyst’s voice says.  “You said hi, it’s time for you to get off the phone now.”

“No!  Lapis—don’t… don’t let her take the phone away…!”

“Wait, Amethyst, let him stay on the phone.  Steven, shut up and don’t talk.  I’ll tell you a story, how does that sound?”

“Sound good,” Steven sighs.

In a moment of inspiration, you remember one of the first stories you told.  About the Lunar Sea Spire.  You think about how much things have changed since you made up that story, and how much even the Steven in the story has grown. 

You keep talking mainly to make sure he stays quiet.  It works, aside from the occasional comment or gasp when something unexpected happens.  His interruptions grow less and less frequent, and when you finish with the gems’ congratulations, you hear Amethyst’s voice instead of Steven’s.

“That was great,” she says.  “But he’s kinda zonked out now.  I’ll tell him the ending later.”

“How much later?” you ask.  “What if he passes out for another four days?”

“I doubt it.  He was already awake for a while, I’m sure he’s just tired.”

“Can I see him soon?”

“You can probably come by tomorrow,” Amethyst says.  “I’ll text you.  I promise.”

“Thanks,” you say.  You mean it.  So you repeat it.  “Thank you, Amethyst.  Thanks for everything.”

“Thank _you,_ Lapis.  Thanks for helping Steven out, and giving us awesome superhero personas.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Heh.  Stay cool, Lapis.  See ya.”

You’re shaking with relief.  You heard Steven’s voice.  Everything is going to be fine.

**~ ~ ~**

For the first time in weeks, you don’t stay a minute after school ends.  You drive straight to the hospital.  His father is with him.  You feel a twinge of remorse for calling Amethyst instead of Greg.  In your defense, you were panicked. 

It’s good to see Steven, but he’s hooked up to a metric shit ton of hardware, and he can still barely talk.  You’re surprised by how weak he is.  At least he’s happy to see you.

You’re still wondering what happened that night when he snuck out to your school.  But you decide to save the interrogations for when he’s a little stronger.  For now, you keep telling stories.

He grows stronger every day.  When he’s strong enough to lift himself into a sitting position, he’s finally sent home.

You make a vow to never go another day without visiting him.

As long as he lives.

You don’t know how much of Amethyst’s story he knows.  So you dedicate a story to her.  It’s easy enough to change her backstory to fit your universe.

It’s easy enough to tell Steven that she actually came out of a hole in the ground.

It’s not right for you to pick favorite characters, but Amethyst is your new favorite.

Next to Steven, of course.

**~ ~ ~**

“Oh, I forgot to tell you.”  Steven starts to get up, then stops himself before you get the chance to.  “I have your jacket.  It’s in my closet.  I got some puke on it, so we washed it for you.”

“Oh.  Thanks.”  You go over to the closet to retrieve it.  You had forgotten that you even owned a jacket.  You sniff it.  The fresh smell of laundry detergent permeates your nose.  “So… I have to ask you this.  Why did you decide to head out to my school?  We’re all curious.”

Steven shrugs.  He looks uneasy.  “I… I don’t know.  To tell you the truth I don’t even remember the whole thing.”

“Were you hallucinating?  Amethyst told me you get hallucinations.  Is that true?”

Steven groans.  “Why’d she have to tell you that….”

You can’t stop yourself from asking.  “Do you really have hallucinations where you think you’re a crystal gem?”

Steven bites his lip.  “M-maybe…?  They’re not fun, usually I imagine—I feel like they’re—my aunts—the gems—are in trouble and I’m the only one who can help them.  But I can’t use my powers because I don’t…”  He trails off.

“You don’t… have a gem?”

Steven blanches.  “It happened like, twice.  But… it was pretty scary.”

“Oh god….”  You wring your jacket in your hands.  “Steven, this isn’t good…   I’ve got you thinking so much about these stories that you’ve actually thought they were real….”

“No, Lapis, you can’t seriously be blaming yourself for this—”

“Listen, Steven, I didn’t even know—I didn’t know how your mother really died.”

“Wh-what does that have to do with anything?”

What _did_ that have to do with anything?  “I didn’t mean to make these stories so messed up.  I—I made your mother give up her physical form to have you—you must have felt awful about that—”

“I thought… I just thought it made for an interesting parallel.”

“I should stop,” you say.  “This wasn’t a good idea.  I’m gonna stop.  You don’t need to hear any more of this.”

“No!  Lapis, I mean it, your stories make me happy!  Remember when you used to treat me like a normal kid?  Remember when we used to go out for pizza and make fart noises at old ladies for fun, and then you stopped doing _everything_ once you found out I was sick?  Now you’re not even gonna tell me _stories_ anymore just because you think that’s hurting me?”

“Steven, I just don’t want to have another scene where I’m rushing you to the hospital—”

“Next you’re not gonna play anything for me!  And what are you gonna do after that, stop talking to me?  Do you think _that’s_ gonna keep me from dying?  _Nothing_ is gonna make me better!  Just accept it and stop making things worse!”

“Steven…”

“No!  Every time you try to make things better, you always make them worse!  Why can’t you just let me be happy?”

“Well, what would make you happy?” you yell.

“To be a Crystal Gem!  To be able to protect people instead of making them revolve their entire lives around me!  To go back in time and stop myself from leaving the house so that I would have been well enough to see your recital!”  He slams his head backward into his pillows.  “I did something stupid, and I nearly died!”

“You don’t want anything that I can give you.”

“I want more Crystal Gem stories, okay?  How’s that?”

You release your grip on your jacket and sigh in resignation.  “Okay.”

“I just want you to keep being my friend,” Steven adds.  “But… I don’t wanna hurt you either.  I guess…. maybe one reason I left the house was because I missed you.”

“I’m sorry….”

“No, stop saying that!  I—it was my fault, not yours!  I… I nearly got myself killed, and I have to make sure I never do that again.  When I was in the car….”  He squeezes his eyes shut.  “I really thought I was gonna die.  I just kept thinking about how I was never gonna get to see my dad or Garnet or Pearl or Amethyst or Connie again….  I was worried that I wouldn’t get to say goodbye.”  He looks at you, his eyes pleading and shining with tears.  “So… please, at least just tell me more stories!”

“You’re right...” you say.  “Yeah, you’re right.  I’m sorry, Steven.  I mean—You have enough people looking out for you.  I just… need to keep being your friend.  I’m sorry.”

“And you need to stop apologizing so much.”

“Okay.  I get it.  I’m—No, no I’m not sorry.  I’ll work on that.”

“Good.”

You put down the jacket.  “Steven…  The whole thing about your mom in the stories… it didn’t bother you at all?”

“No.  I said, I thought it was interesting.”

“But….”  You feel bad for prying.  “I don’t know…. Don’t you hate it?  I mean, that your mom gave your life and…  No, I’ll stop talking.”

Steven is thinking.  You can see it in his face.  It’s always easy to read him.  “I don’t know….  I’ve thought about it before, but…  I think my mom knew what she was doing.  It’s not like I can blame myself for being born.”

He’s amazing.  You blame yourself for that all the time.

“It was my mom’s decision to have me, so….  I never even met her, so I don’t know how to feel about her.  Even though everyone always tells me she was wonderful.  Who knows.  Maybe it’s better this way.  I mean, if she lived, she would have had to watch me die and…. Apparently, she loved everyone.  Maybe this would have killed her.”

This isn’t right.  You shouldn’t be talking about such heavy topics.  All you want to do is apologize for bringing it up, but you told Steven you wouldn’t do that anymore.  “Do you even realize,” you say, “how strong you are?”

Steven doesn’t laugh.  He doesn’t even look pleased at the compliment.  “I don’t know.”

“Then you don’t.  Steven… you’re a real hero.”

“Thanks,” he says emptily.

You try to give him a smile.  “Do you wanna see the video of my performance?”

“Sure.”

“The quality is really shitty.”

At the use of your curse word, Steven giggles.  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

**~ ~ ~**

The vow that you add to your ever-growing list of vows is to never let any conversation with Steven get that heavy again.  If blowing a raspberry into your hand and using four-letter words is what will get him laughing, you’ll work on being hilarious.

Connie visits the next time it snows.  Steven comments that he hopes they get snowed in so that Connie will have to spend the night, so you make up a story about that.  The Steven in the story decides to do the right thing by taking Connie home right away, but he is rewarded for his good deed by getting to spend the night watching the snow together in the end.

After the story is over, Connie calls her parents.  After a long talk between Pearl and Connie’s mother, to everyone’s surprise, she decides to let her stay.

It fills up your heart to see Steven so happy.

“I’ve never had a sleepover before,” Connie says.  “Where am I gonna sleep?  On the couch?  I don’t even have pajamas!  I’ll have to sleep in—”

“You’ll borrow _my_ pajamas!” says Steven.

You suppose there are some perks to being terminally ill.  And those perks include having the power to bring out the pity in the overprotective parents of your best friend.

You think about asking if you can join them, but you decide to let them have this time to themselves.  Better leave yourself out of it in case you dampen the mood.

**~ ~ ~**

In the end, Steven and Connie don’t leave you out of their slumber party entirely.  Later that night, you get a video message.  As usual, your heart jumped into your throat when you heard your phone ringing.  But relief tingled all the way to your fingers when you saw who and what it was.

The video takes forever to download.  A smile forms on your face when you see Steven sitting on his bed in his pajamas, holding his ukulele.  “Is it recording?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Connie says.  “Take it away, Steven!”

Steven smiles and starts to sing. 

“If you're evil and you're on the rise,

You can count on the four of us taking you down.

Cause we're good and evil never beats us,

We'll win the fight and then go out for pizzas!”

You can’t believe it.  He’s made you a theme song. 

**~ ~ ~**

School’s been cancelled due to the blizzard.  And though you have a foot of snow to wade through, you still make your way to the beach house, carrying your violin.  You’ve decided to make an extended cover of his song with it.  You don’t have more lyrics in mind, but you’re sure that you and Steven and even Connie can brainstorm.

By this time, it has stopped snowing.  The roads are mostly cleared, but there isn’t a path cleared to Steven’s house.  You can understand why.  It’s practically invisible.

Face flushed and smiling, you knock on the door.

Garnet’s square-shaped head appears in the doorway, and you’re about to run past her into the house, but she holds the door open only a foot.  “I’m sorry, Lapis,” she says.  “Steven’s having a bad day.  You’ll have to come back some other time.”

“A… A bad day?  But he was so happy yesterday….”

You try to see past her into the house.  But she’s not letting you look.  From inside the house, you hear Amethyst’s voice.  “Here—I got you a bucket.  Are you gonna hurl?”

“He’s in a lot of pain right now,” Garnet says quietly.  “He doesn’t want you to see him like this.”

The sound of a muffled groan makes its way to your ears.  “But… he was doing just fine…”

“His condition fluctuates every day.  We never know what to expect.  Now, I have to get back to him.”

“Wait—”

You don’t know what you want to say.  Your voice catches in your throat.  Garnet waits for you to speak, then she wordlessly turns to go back inside.

You’re left standing dumbly for a couple minutes outside the door.  You can’t believe this sudden turn of events.  The Steven in the video just yesterday looked practically healthy….

Through the glass door, you can see Connie running toward you.  She throws open the door. You’re not surprised to see her face covered in tears.  She pushes past you.  Before she reaches the steps, she turns back.  “In that one story you made up, with the time-travelling device, it wasn’t necessary to make stable time loops, right?  You could do anything even if it resulted in a complete paradox?”

“I… I guess.”

She glares at you.  “You know what would be a fun story idea?” she shouts.  “Steven uses it to go back in time and convinces his mother to get an abortion!  That way, they can still get to live with each other, even if she had to miss a decade of his life!  No, wait…”  Her voice drops.  “No, that doesn’t work.  He still dies.”

Before you can stop her, Connie runs down the steps.  You hear her sobs echo in the distance.

You follow in the same direction, leaving back down the steps.  You look at toward the ocean.  “Fun story idea,” you whisper.  “No one dies.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter finally contains the rest of Lapis's backstory, so stay tuned~ Questions that you have never asked will be answered. Like, what the fuck is Peridot's purpose here other than to be annoying? What the fuck happened to Jasper? How the fuck did so many people named after rocks manage to be gathered in one city? Okay the last one is never answered other than the fact that it's AU logic.  
> Writing texting conversations is annoying. I don't think I'm gonna do that again.  
> Sorry for the one-day hiatus.  
> By the way, thanks to Phri's suggestion, I think that what Steven is dying of is probably heart failure. But I'm still not entirely sure.  
> I think I may go back and name these chapters. If anyone has any suggestions for a name for chapters 2,5, 9 and 10 I would have appreciation.
> 
> (You know what I wanted to write? The sleepover scene. I'll describe it here for anyone who's curious. Connie borrowed an old nightgown from Pearl and she and Steven roasted marshmallows by the fire. Then they went back upstairs and they were so tired that Connie fell asleep in Steven's bed and they were snuggling all night like the adorable fucking cuties that they are. It was so damn happy until of course I had to ruin it by making Steven wake up in gut-wrenching pain, because that's just what I do.)


	11. Malachite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis tells Steven about the Crystal Gems' defeat of villains Jasper and Peridot, perhaps making the story a bit too personal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short hiatus this chapter took for fucking ever to write and I got pretty sick.  
> This is the chapter that goes into detail about Lapis's past relationship with Jasper and could possibly include a lot of triggering details, including abuse and self-harm as just a few of them.  
> It gets pretty graphic toward the end, so you can skip the last wavy squiggly thing if you want. The next chapter pretty much explains what happened.  
> This chapter alone should have an explicit rating, but after this it goes back to friendly T.
> 
> For this chapter alone I'm adding the warning rape/non-con. Comes up after the last wavy squiggly.

“Check out this book.  I asked Connie to get it for me on her last library run.”

“Steven, are you doing okay?”

“I said check out the book.”

“But—I mean—”

“Check out the book, Lapis.”  He starts to lean over to his night table, but falls back and sighs.  “Can you get the book?  It’s right—oh, you can see it.”

You pick up the book.  _True Facts about Gemstones._   “Heh.  Looks interesting.”

“I found out some really cool things in there.  Like—pearls aren’t actually real crystal gems.  They’re just hardened oyster guts.  But this is funny.”  His fingers shake as he turns the page until he reaches a colorful one about quartzes.  “Rose quartz is found in massive quantities!  It’s funny because my mom was so huge.”

“That’s adorable.”

Something on the quartz page catches your eye, but Steven turns the page again before you can confirm what you saw.  “And this is pretty weird.  Lapis lazuli dissolves in water.  Did you know that?”

“Aw.  Damn.”  Well, it put a damper on being the ocean gem, but you hated to admit that it made sense.  “Steven, can I see the quartz page again?”

“Yeah.  Sure.”  He flips back to said quartz page.  You take the book out of his hands and hold it in front of the light.  “Hey, watcha looking at?”

“Just… facts.  Research.”

You had no idea that jasper was a type of quartz.  But there it was, colorfully photographed.  It was even striped.

Looking at that stone fills you with a foreboding chill.  Right above the gem, you can see the shining yellow eyes that still leer at you in your head.  Eyes that will never leer at you again.

**~ ~ ~**

Besides for your hair, nothing about your appearance was especially remarkable.  By wearing a hoodie or a headscarf, you could easily get lost in a crowd.

Jasper was the very opposite.  It was difficult to note the most remarkable thing about her.  She had many impressive traits, including her tiger stripes, her large lips, her huge fluffy blonde hair, and her long-lashed, bright yellow eyes.  Though what most people first noticed about her was her sheer size.  While you were small and slightly built, she was built like a tank.  She wasn’t someone that many people were willing to cross, unless they had a death wish.

Perhaps you did, and that was why you got so close to her.

Despite all of Jasper’s incredible and idiosyncratic traits, the first thing you always noticed about her was her teeth.  Her teeth were sparkling white and perfectly straight.  You could have been imagining it, but maybe she started wearing her toothy leer after she got her braces off in the seventh grade, just to show off.

Once you both got to high school, she denied ever having braces.  If anyone asked how her teeth were so perfect, you’re sure she would have said she was born that way.

But no one else would have noticed her teeth besides for you.

People don’t usually ask a girl with vitiligo about her teeth.

“Remember sixth grade, when your teeth looked like shit?  It’s kind of a shame.  Braces looked cute on you.  Made you look almost docile.”  No one but you would have dared to say anything like that to her.

“Don’t push it, babe.”

She didn’t like cheeky comment from you unless you were in bed with her.  Or on the table.  Or however far you could get before you were both fucking on some surface. 

She left you with bruises that hurt so bad and felt so good.  You remember pinching the bruises she left you in order to make them hurt harder.  You would pinch yourself hard enough to bleed.  You wore long sleeves for several months before you decided to let everyone know who you were.

Sleeveless dresses just made you feel freer.

After you re-pinched the bruises and made your skin break open, it looked enough like you were harming yourself on your own.

The first day that you wore your sundresses after all those months was a windy day in early spring.  You reveled in the feeling of the wind against your abused skin.  You couldn’t wait to go swimming later.

The ocean was still freezing this time of year, but you didn’t care.

You felt so good despite the worried questions you got from teachers and the suspicious looks you got from classmates.  It was hard not to pick at the scabs during class and bite them off.

In your music class, the questions were relentless.  Your friends were worried about you.  “Is everything okay at home?” asked a fellow violinist.

“Everything’s fine.”

“I’m keeping an eye on you,” he said.

She rarely ever visited you in the music room.  She had the decency to wait until everyone was gone before she showed her striped face.  You continued to play your flute even while she filled the doorway.  Jasper stared at you with the yellow-eyed stare that could make anyone else flinch.  But your song wasn’t finished yet.

“Do I really have to do this?” she asked.

 _Do what?_ you wondered, but you weren’t ready to break your concentration.

Not until she marched over and grabbed your flute right out of your hands.

“Wh-why did you—”

“What’s _this?”_ she asked, grabbing hold of your arm. 

“Wh-what are you talking about?”

“Just go around showing everyone what we’ve been doing like the dirty slut that you are!  Why’ve you decided to cover up until _now?_   Did something change?”

“The weather?” you suggested.  “It… seemed like a nice day to… to wear short sleeves…”

“Like hell.  What are you doing to yourself?”  She raised your heavily bruised arm to her eyes.

“I—”

“I don’t like it.  If you love getting hurt so much, you should come over more often.”

“Jasper, give me back my flute.”

Jasper tightened her grip on your arm.  “I don’t get it, do you want everyone to know about us?  Are you showing off?”

Her fingers pressed against one nasty bruise. It felt as though she was driving a nail into your skin.  You didn’t care.  You didn’t even flinch. “Give it back, Jasper.”

Jasper dropped the flute and kicked it away, scowling as she grabbed hold of your other arm and gazed at the markings that covered it.

“Stop hurting yourself, babe.”

You looked at her blankly. “I’m guessing this isn’t out of concern.”

“Always quick to assume the worst of me.”  She sighed tragically.  “You’re a real piece of work.  Listen.  If you’re such a goddamn masochist…”  She squeezed her hand around a purplish bit of skin on your wrist.  The sudden pain made you gasp.  “Let me do it for you, ‘kay?”

"Ow—"                                    

"You like that?"

“No!" you shouted.  You tugged your arm and she released her grip.

"You're impossible to figure out," she said.  "I don't _get_ you."

You didn't get yourself either.  That night, you had a difficult time keeping your hands off your skin.  It didn't feel right to let those bruises heal.  It took too much self-control to stop yourself.  You were shaking with something that felt like withdrawal, and when you lost your focus, you found yourself absently picking at a scab.

You were starting to hurt from not hurting.  You had no choice but to show up later at Jasper's house and let her have her way with you.

She really let it all out on you.  But that was exactly what you needed.  "It's gonna be chilly tomorrow," she whispered sleepily after she was done.  "I want you to cover up."

You did it for her.  You weren't sure what you were afraid of; if you wanted her to hurt you, why didn't you want to make her angry?  Something about her made you not want to rub her the wrong way.  Aside from the occasional snide comment.  But even these were coming out of you less and less frequently.

You covered up even though the weather was perfect the next day.  And the week following.  The questions didn't stop.  Your friend on the violin was especially concerned.  "I know something's up," he told you.  "You're just covering up now that everyone's asking you questions.  Maybe you should let them help."

"I don't need anyone's help," you muttered.  "And if you try to get a teacher to screw with my personal shit, I'm gonna shank you with my bow."

Music class was definitely the best thing that happened to you.  While you were playing with your friends and fellow musicians, you didn't feel the urge to scratch your skin to feel the pain.  Playing the violin didn’t make all your problems vanish, but it was fun.

And you liked your fellow violinist.  But he had an annoying habit of prying.  He approached you one day as you were staggering into history the morning after a particularly rough session.  “Hey, blue duckling,” he said.

“Is that me?” you asked.

“Yeah.  You’re waddling like a duck.”

Your cheeks burned.  Your arms tightened around your books.  “Shut up.”

“Look, I know you don’t like people asking you what’s going on at home.  But if your parents are sexually abusive, I’m just gonna have to take a risk at getting shanked by your bow.”

It wouldn’t have mattered if teachers did any investigating, because there was nothing to find.  Still, you whispered to him, “You wanna know what’s going on?  I’ll tell you if you can swear to keep it to yourself.”

“My lips are sealed,” he said.

“Good.”  You pulled him into an empty classroom.  “Anyway,” you started right away, “I’m dating Jasper, most of these bruises are hickeys, and she fucked me so hard last night that I can barely walk.  Does that answer your questions?”

His mouth drops open.  “You’re dating—”

“Big Buff Cheeto Puff.  Yep.”

“You and Jasper—”  He grabbed onto your shoulders.  You winced at the sudden pain, and he released them.  “Sorry… but—why?!”

You shrugged.  “She used to push me down a lot in elementary school, and I guess I found that sexy.  She’s a monster in bed.  You should join us.”

“I’ll pass,” he said.  “Or… maybe not.  I’ll think about it.”

“You know she’d kill you.”

“Then—don’t invite me!  Or at least tell me whose place you’re gonna be at.”

You chuckled.  “Alright.  Feel better about me?”

 _“Not_ really.  But let’s get outa here.  Class started already.”

Such a goody two shoes.  You thought that maybe you should start trusting your friends more.  Especially your music friends.  Confiding just that small detail of your life in someone made you feel a little freer.  You entertained yourself by wondering what would happen if your fellow violinist actually showed up at your place to join you and Jasper.  The thought made you giggle, until a hand suddenly grabbed your upper arm and yanked you around a corner.

You found yourself staring into her eyes, and suddenly it wasn’t funny anymore.

“Jasper, that hurts.  Let go of me.”                                                                           

“Nice to see you too, babe.  What’s the problem, huh?”  Still gripping your arm, she took hold of your chin and tilted it up.  “That’s a nasty mark on your neck.  Did I do that to you?”

“Yeah.  You’re trying to remake my skin to look like yours.”

She grinned.  And there they were—all those shiny white teeth.  All of them.  You could even see her gums.  “You’ll be Tiger Stripes Lazuli.  Then everyone’ll know we’re a matching set.”

You were afraid to look away, but you could feel people staring.  You tried to tug your arm away, but her grip was like iron.  Her grin faded.  “Why’ve you been so cold to me lately?  And why are you making yourself bleed?  I told you to stop hurting yourself.”

“I—I need to g-go to class,” you stammered.

“Since when have _you_ cared about missing class?”  She squeezed your chin in her hand.

“Please, I need… music class is…”  Your voice was failing you.  “Music class is starting soon.  I d-don’t wanna be late for it.”

“I don’t like this music class,” Jasper said.  “That violin kid is definitely hitting on you.”

“No he’s not!  We’re just friends!”

“Just friends.  Like hell.  I’ve seen enough romcoms to know what _that_ phrase means.  He’s a dude.  Don’t you know anything about dudes?  They’re not _just friends_ with any girls.  He just wants to get you in bed with him.”

“You—do you just want me to… stop taking music?”

“If it’ll get you away from those horny idiots.”

“You’re—”  You yanked so hard on your arm that you actually managed to free it.  “You’re _not_ gonna try to take this away from me!  Do you even give a single shit about me?”

“I haven’t made you do anything yet.  Don’t treat me like a monster.  Go ahead and play with your little group, just stay away from that violin kid.”

You weren’t sure how to break it to him next time you saw him.  _Sorry, I can’t talk to you anymore because my girlfriend has jealousy issues._   He was too nosy.  You could be certain that would lead to a confrontation, and eventually his inevitable death or fatal injury.

So you played like there was nothing wrong.  You sounded as good together as you always did.  To avoid another scene with Jasper grabbing you in the hallway, you avoid scratching anymore at scabs and bruises.

Words like “filthy masochist” snuck into your head, and you thought to yourself that a filthy masochist like yourself needed your filthy sadist to do your work for you.

Your filthy sadist was perfectly satisfied with this arrangement.  She started coming over to your place more often that you were at hers, because your father was almost never home, and when the morning came, it was practically impossible to get your wrecked body home.

At first, she was fine with you keeping things a secret from everyone else.  She was satisfied with giving you the eye in the hallways, leaving dirty notes in your locker, and even once blowing you a kiss.  This was all fine, but she started crossing the line when she snuck up on you and delivered a sharp smack to your ass before you walked into music class.  “Love you, babe,” she whispered.

“Please don’t do that,” you said, mortified.

Jasper frowned.  “I don’t get it, are you _ashamed_ of me?”

“No, I’m just… I’m not in the mood right now.  I have to go.”

You were worried she would follow you, but she didn’t step foot into the music room.  Your friend the violinist asked you about the dark cloud he saw hanging over your head.  “When _don’t_ I have a dark cloud hanging over my head?” you asked.

“You have a point.  Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s peachy fucking keen, so shut up.”

You didn’t even consider breaking up with her until you the time you came on a bad day.

It was a really bad day.  For both of you.

You were itching to pick at your skin, or let out your pent-up energy in some violent way.  But even anything Jasper could do wasn’t enough.  You were starting to get numb to any kind of physical pain.  Before you knew it, you had burst into tears right underneath her.

“Ugh…” Jasper sighed.  You could smell the alcohol on her breath.  “Can’t you just wait until I’m done?”

“I hate it!” you screamed.  “I hate everything in this goddamn world, and nothing works!  I feel like shit all the time—”

Jasper rolled her eyes.  She rolled off the couch and grabbed a bottle of something off the floor.  “Have some of this.  That’s how I deal.”

“No!  That’s just gonna make everything worse—”

Jasper shrugged, and took a swig from the bottle.  “Wha’s wrong with you today,” she slurred.  “You never get like this.”

You burried your face in your hands and curled up into a ball.  “I don’t know—”

“You sure you didn’t have anything to drink today?”  She waved the bottle in front of your face again.  “I mean it.  A bottle of this stuff’ll knock out—”  She hiccupped.  “It’ll knock out a bear.”

“What do _you_ think of this world?  Can _you_ stand it?”

She snorted.  “It fucking sucks, but I’ve got you, babe.  And I’ve got my booze when things get too shitty.  You know I don’t even get carded most’ve the time?  Now if you’re not gonna have a drink, just hold it in for a few more minutes.”

“Jasper, I want to die.”

She hiccupped again.  “This is all emo crap, and you know it.”

You peeked up at her through a crack in your fingers.  “H-huh?”

“Who fucking dyes their hair blue and plays depressing shit on the guitar and doesn’t think about killing themselves?  Change your look and you’ll change your whole life.”

“Is that how you think it works?” you snapped.

“Hell yeah.  The way you look is everything.  You know how I learned that?”

“By scaring children?”

“Seriously.  I’m not in the mood for this tragic backstory crap.  Just—”  She took your wrists away from your face and pinned your hands behind your head.

“Stop—!”

“I mean it.  Have a drink.  You need it.”

“Do you even care about me?  Like, at all?”

Jasper narrowed her eyes at you.  Next thing you knew, your head was pressed back into the couch cushions, and she had her lips pressed hard enough against yours to bruise.  She pulled away and muttered, “How the hell do you think _I_ feel, huh?  Do you care about _me?”_

_“Nngh—”_

“You don’t treat me different from everyone else!  You hate me.  I can see it in your face.  You’re terrified of me.”

It’s all true, so you don’t deny anything.  “Well?  You haven’t asked to break up yet.  Why’re you still with me if you hate me so much?  Am I just a sex object to you?”

You bit your lip.  “I—I don’t—”

“That’s the kinda shit you’d expect from someone like _me,_ isn’t it.  You’d think I was just after your body, but it’s just the opposite.  You just keep coming back because you want a good fuck.  You won’t even let me touch you in school.  Is this just a game to you?”

“NO!” you screamed.  “It’s not anything!”

“So?  What is it, huh?  How do _you_ feel about me, Lapis?”

“I DON’T KNOW!” you shrieked.

“SO THAT’S HOW IT IS!”  Jasper stood up.  She finished the bottle and threw it on the floor.  The glass shattered.  “PICK THAT UP!”

“WHY SHOULD I?”

“CLEAN THAT THE FUCK UP!  YOU DIDN’T WANT ANY, NOW CLEAN IT UP!”

She clenched her enormous hands into fists at her sides.  You wasted no more time.  You found a broom and worked on cleaning the broken glass.  Jasper stomped away, and you could hear her grumbling something you couldn’t understand. 

You picked up a piece of glass and scratched it against your skin.  _“AND DON’T YOU DARE CUT YOURSELF!”_

You dropped the shard.  When you were finished picking up the remains of the bottle, Jasper came staggering clumsily back into the room.  She was holding a lump under her arm.  “YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS?” she yelled.

“Wh-what?”

“IT’S ALL I HAVE TO EAT FOR DINNER!  A FROZEN FUCKING CHICKEN!”  She raised her arm, and you ducked to avoid the flying frozen fucking chicken.  Jasper was yelling about frozen chicken.  In a moment of mad hysteria, you laughed.  “J-Jasper, you’re really drunk.”

She fell to her knees, stumbled to her feet, and collapsed on the couch.  “Nevermind.  I feel like shit, I stopped being horny….  Just get the fuck out of here if that’s what you want to do.  Just get the hell out of my face.”

**~ ~ ~**

You had chained yourself to her.  Willingly made yourself her prisoner.  There was no escaping now.  You couldn't imagine just casually breaking up with Jasper.  _"Hey, Jasper, I think we should break up."  "'Kay, babe, fine with me."_ No.  There was no way that would work.

"Um."  Your friend on the violin stared at your face.  "That's not a hickey.  And you didn't do that to yourself."

"I don't wanna talk about it."

"Lapis, you're gonna destroy yourself unless she destroys you first."

"Well," you asked him desperately, "what would you do?!"

"I dunno, leave?"

The suggestion actually had some reason to it.  You had a car.  A newly aquired car.  There was more in life to escape from than Jasper.  And you could escape anywhere in your very own vehicle.

You loved driving.  You could go anywhere without having to move at all.  If you wanted, you could turn the car around and drive right off a bridge.  You could kill someone.  You could kill yourself.  It was so easy.  But you didn't want to die in a car accident.  Just in case someone might be able to save you.

You waited until school ended, so no one would notice you were gone.  And then, you just drove.  You weren't sure where you were going.  All you knew was that you needed to get away.

After what must have been a solid day of driving, you finally let yourself out in order to buy some water at a rest stop.  Your supply was running out.  You began to think about food as well.  You had brought everything important with you except for food.  Why didn't you think about food?

The night air was pleasantly cool on your skin as you returned to your car, holding a bag of meager provisions for the rest of your journey.  At first, you just thought it was your eyes playing tricks on you when you saw a massive figure leaning against your car.

"Nice night, huh?"

Your blood turned cold.  What was she doing here.  She couldn't be real.  "Cmere, it's cold outside."

You dropped the bags and started to run.  But Jasper grabbed your wrist before you could get back inside the tiny convinience store.  Her palm blocked off your mouth before you could scream.  "Surprise, babe.  Calm down, it's just me."

In what must have been a friendly gesture of trust, she held up both her hands over her head.  "Good thing you finally stopped.  My ride's busted.  I'm coming with you."

Was this a nightmare?  "I'm going home."

"No you're not.  Are you even going anywhere?  Or are you just getting the hell out of here?  Because if that's what you're doing, I'm with you."  She opened the door to the driver's seat, bowing in mock-politeness.

"D-did you follow me... all the way out here?  Why...?"

"Same reason as you.  I got sick of everything.  Now, are you getting in or not?"

You looked at yourself in the side mirror.  As usual, the bottom dropped out of your stomach when you saw your own terrified face reflected back at you. 

Mind blank, you whipped out your phone.  You didn’t know who you would call, maybe the police, yes, definitely the police—

Before you could lift the phone to your face, Jasper snatched it right out of your hand.  “Oops,” she said, smiling as she dropped it to the hard pavement.  You bent down to pick it up.  Suddenly, her foot came down inches from your hand.  You watched in horror as she crunched your phone under the heel of her shoe.

You backed up against the door of your car.  “Lapis, honey…”  Jasper took her own phone out of her pocket and dropped it right next to yours.  She stomped that one to an even finer mess.  “We both need this.  No one’s gonna follow us.  It’ll just be you and me.  Trust me on this.  You’ll thank me later.”

“Th-this is kidnapping.”

“Sure, if you wanna think of it that way.  I like to think of it more like doing us both a favor.  Now, let’s get out of here.  This place isn’t exactly what I had in mind for us.” 

You were trembling head to foot as you sat down, and took the wheel.  Jasper quickly dropped in next to you.  "This should be fun.  Where to?"

"We're going—”

"Not home.  Anywhere but fucking home.  What do you say we go somewhere classy.  Spend a lot of money."

You tried to focus on the road as you backed out.  "Like what."

"I don't know.  But after that, let's go out for dinner."  She smiled.  "I know where I'd like to eat out tonight."

She licked her lips.  Your soul must have left your body and left a robot in its place to drive the car, because you managed not to crash or even piss yourself out of sheer terror.

After a while, she deemed you too tired to drive.  "Take a nap and let me take over," she commanded.

"How'd your car get busted?  Are you a terrible driver?"

"Just give me the wheel."

You weren't going to say no.  But you couldn't sleep when she drove.  She apparently did have a driver's license, but you wondered if she passed her driver's test using pure intimidation.  Every time she turned you were thrown into the door, and every stop made you both lurch forward.

"Fuck it, your car sucks," she said.

You didn't say anything.

You were thinking.  Past your terror, you were forming a plan.  It was pretty much the same plan you had earlier, only now you had Jasper to worry about.  Well, this would only make things easier.

You knew how you felt about her now.

You hated her.

With every fiber of your being, you hated the bitch next to you who was your tormenter and kidnapper.  You didn't regret dating her now, because it just opened up a brand new opportunity.

She decided that she was too tired to go anywhere tonight, and you were, too.  She took you to the cheapest motel you could find for the night.

It would have been cheaper to just sleep in the car, but she probably knew that you knew what her motivation was.  When she had your car keys tucked into her pants, that took away your main chance of escape.  You could have still walked out the door, if she didn't happily tap the space on the creaky bed next to her.  You slipped into bed beside her, and she wrapped her arms around you in a grip so tight that it made it impossible to move your arms.  "G'night, babe," she whispered.

It was only the fact that you had been awake for the past twenty four hours that made you fall asleep that night.  You reasoned with yourself, even though you couldn't stay awake a moment longer, that you would be able to formulate a plan better when your brain was well rested.

She woke up before you did, and when you sat up in bed, groggy and disoriented, she came bearing breakfast.  "Eat up," she said sweetly.

"How long were you gone," you asked.  "Did you honestly trust me not to run away?"

"You're making this sound more and more like kidnapping," Jasper said.  "You wouldn't run away.  All you've got to run back to is a shitty life with no friends and a worthless bum for a father."

"I have friends," you muttered.

“Those assholes who you play with?  You think they actually like you?"  Jasper chuckled.  "They act friendly around you because they like your music.  I swear to you if you didn't play the violin they wouldn't pretend to give two shits about you."

She was going to beat whatever you had left.  That was okay.  You could handle anything from her now.  You let her take you wherever she wanted to go.  You even danced with her at a sketchy nightclub.  You were still a good dancer.  Surprisingly, she was, too.  You hated to admit it, but you were actually having fun.

But Stockholm syndrome wasn't going to play a part here.  You were sure about that.

"See, I know I've been a bit of an ass lately," Jasper said to you once you were back in the car, "so I'm making up for it now.  No one knows who we are.  Your pretty blue hair and my pretty stripes don't mean anything here.  Wherever the fuck _here_ even is."

“What are you planning on telling your parents?"

"Like they expect me to be anything but a disappointment.  Being a straight-A student doesn't do shit when everyone thinks you're a monster."

"Hm.  What about dear little Peridorito."

"Heh."  Jasper's smile didn't show as many teeth as it usually did.  "She's gonna be fine.  She's probably better off without me around."

You stared out the window.  "So you do plan on going home."

"I don't know, I haven't decided yet.  So.  Where to next."

"You're letting me decide?"

"I _want_ you to decide.  We're doing this for _you,_ remember?"

You had been waiting for her to ask this question.  "I want to go to a lake," you said.

"A _lake?"_ Jasper spat.  "You live right next to the fucking ocean, and you want to go for a swim?"

"You'll get to see me in a bikini."

"Fine.  If you let me pick one out for you, I'll buy you a bikini."

"I've already got a few packed," you said.  "I wanted to swim somewhere new.  I'll let you pick out which one you like best, if you want.  It would save on funds."

"Yeah, okay.  Fine, sounds good."

“We'll need to stop and get directions.  I want to go somewhere private."

You drove to a lake in the middle of nowhere.  Exactly where you wanted to be.  You bumped along an old dirt path until you came across an old, abandoned cabin.  "This place is perfect."

Still sucking up to you despite her obvious displeasure, Jasper carried your bags in for you.  _"This_ was what you had in mind?" she spat.  "An old, decrepit house on a creepy lake?"

"I like it," you said.  "It's just my type of setting.  I'll play you some emo music on the guitar tomorrow.  This place sets the perfect mood for it."

"Whatever you want, babe," she said, scowling at a fallen piece of roof.

The cabin must have belonged to a fisherman once.  A very long time ago.  There was a small boat in front of the house, next to a peaceful dock.  There was plenty of fishing supplies, like nets and rods and ropes.

You loved this place.

It was definitely the last place that you wanted to be.

“What a craphole," Jasper said, bending down to examine a fallen and broken piece of unrecognizable furniture.

You stood in the doorway watching her.  Absentmindedly, you picked up a rock.  A good, sturdy, heavy rock.  You crept up behind her.  She didn't turn to look at you as you raised it above her head.

She didn't even have the chance to react before she crumpled in a satisfying heap to the dusty floor of your beloved craphole.

**~ ~ ~**

"Boy do I have a story for you today."

"Oh my gosh."

You still have to make Garnet's big reveal.  And you have to do it as epically as possible.  She's waiting in the kitchen, and you have a feeling she's listening.

Making Jasper and Peridot the villains is just too easy.  Jasper is formidable enough, and poor Steven is terrified when she splits Garnet in half.  His mouth remains open for the duration of the entire story.  When you reveal Garnet to be a fusion of Ruby and Sapphire, you really hope she's satisfied.

She defeats the scary badguy with the power of love.  Because Steven believes in her.  Because Steven loves it.  And you love making Steven happy.  But you're not satisfied with that.  You're not satisfied with who might be your least favorite of Steven's aunts taking her down.

In the end, it's you.  "'Listen, Lapis, fuse with me!'"  You can hear the words in her voice as you speak them through your mouth.  You can see it happening as you take her hand and dance with her.  You can see the giant, six-armed green demon that you form.

And you can hear her shouts as you drag her down with you to the bottom of the ocean.

You decided to call your fusion Malachite after a picture from Steven's borrowed gem book.  But you didn't exactly give her a chance to introduce herself.  She was gone before she had the chance.

"Whoa," is all Steven is able to say when the story is over.

"Did you like that one?" you ask him, pleased with your story telling and world-building skills.

"That was THE BEST!" he shouts.  "You told me you weren't gonna put Ruby and Sapphire in the story!"

"I lied."

“I'm glad you lied!  Garnet's a fusion— how didn't I see that coming?  She had two gems!"

You don't admit that you weren't planning it from the very beginning.  Before you leave, you approach Garnet very seriously.  "So.  How'd I do."

"You pass," Garnet says.

"Is that it?"

"With flying colors."

"Good."

Garnet is satisfied.  Steven is satisfied, and you're very satisfied with the way this story has ended.  Until the next time Malachite shows her freaky green face.

"Hey, guys."

"Hello, Amethyst."

You turn around.  Amethyst walks over to the fridge, opens it, then closes it.  "Can I talk to you, Lapis?"

"Uh... sure."

"I'll leave," says Garnet.  She stands up and walks down the thin hallway to her room.

Amethyst sits across from you at the kitchen table.  "What's up?" you ask.

Amethyst shrugs.  "Steven told me that story you made up about when we ran away and about the Kindergarten and everything...."  She pauses.  "It... kinda got me thinking.  About a lot of stuff.  I had a talk with Pearl, and..."  She trails off.

"You made up?"

"Kinda?  We just talked.  About Rose, and everything.  Y'know, all that stuff I said the other week, I didn't really mean all of it.  I don't _hate_ Pearl.  It was just... a night when emotions were running really high."

"I know."

"I guess I just wanted to say....  Thanks for your Crystal Gem stories.  They've been helping everyone.  Not just Steven."

You're surprised to hear this.  "I was actually thinking about stopping a while back...."

"Well, don't!" Amethyst says.  "I mean it, your stories are the bomb diggity shiznit!"

"The wha...?"

"Shut up and take a compliment!"

"The bomb diggity...."

"Ugh, don't repeat it!"

"Is that another thing you just said in the heat of the moment?"

“I just _thanked_ you.  Now what do you _say?”_

"Uhh...."  What can you say for putting your life's greatest issues into what was basically a real-life fanfiction?  "You're welcome...?"

"I mean it.  Don't stop telling Steven your gem stories.  Ever."

"I won't," you promise.

You can't stay any longer.  You're starting to think about the story you just told, and now you feel slightly sick.  You excuse yourself to go take a walk by the ocean.

It's still cold.  You listen to the wind and regret putting Jasper in the story.  You didn't have to do that.  You didn't have to take things out on Steven like that.

He knew more about you now than he thought he did.

**~ ~ ~**

You could just see her by the light of the dimming twilight.  After you finished testing the ropes, making sure they were tight enough, you stood back to admire your work.

This place really was perfect.  It had everything you needed.  Including sturdy rocks, enough rope to leave your girlfriend trussed up like an animal, and two trees right at the edge of the lake to bind her ankles to, spreading her legs apart and leaving her perfectly exposed.

You sat and waited on a log beside her, waiting for her to wake up so that she could see all your hard work.  If you decided to remove the pretty blue ribbon you had tied over her eyes. 

Finally, she stirred and groaned.  You leaned forward, watching her shake her head, trying to dislodge the thick wad of material stuffed in her mouth.  You let her struggle for a moment until you knelt down next to her head and pulled it out.

“Wh-what do you want,” Jasper rasped.

You pulled off the ribbon and stood back so she could see you.  A slight breeze made your dress flare out as you stood over her.  Jasper’s eyes blinked and widened.   Her mouth gaped open as she stared at you.  “You wanted to see me in a bikini?”

You untied the ribbon at your neck and let the dress fall to the ground and pool at your ankles.  “Do you like what you see?” you asked.

Jasper was shocked into complete silence.  She stopped struggling as she drank in the sight of you, raising your arms above your head and moving your hips, slowly dancing for her under the pale light.  “It’s so beautiful out tonight,” you sighed.  “I’m glad we came here.”

“L-Lapis…”

You dropped down beside her, lying on your side, resting your head on your elbow.  You reached out a hand to brush a stray strand of hair out of her eyes.  “You like my date idea?”

Jasper’s mouth trembled.  She struggled some more under the ropes.  “I asked you a question,” you said.  “I wanna know what you think.”

Your hand traveled down, tracing the lines of her body, running up and down her leg.  “L-Lapis,” she muttered, “don’t do this….”

“We both need this,” you whispered.  “Trust me on this.  You’ll thank me later.”

“No—”

“There isn’t anyone who’s gonna hear you all the way out here.  But I still want you to keep your voice down.  If you scream I’ll gag you again.”

You felt her shiver as you snaked your hand between her legs.  You crawled on top of her, straddling her between your legs.  “How do  _you_  like it,” you said.

“Please,” she whispered, “let’s stop this.  Let me go and we’ll go right back home.  We’ll pretend nothing ever happened—”

“Quiet.”  It was such a new sensation to have her trapped helplessly underneath you.  It was a pretty big turn-on to watch her struggle, and hear the desperate noises she made.  You dug your nails up and down her skin, drawing white lines across her body.

Jasper clenched her teeth and glared daggers at you. You chuckled softly to yourself. What a strange feeling it was to be on top, and be able to do what you’d like whether Jasper consented or not. You pulled the tip of one of her breasts into your mouth and bit down, squeezing the tender flesh between your teeth. Her body tensed up and her muscles hardened, and her head fell back against the mossy earth. Her chest heaved up with an inhale. She must have been holding her breath.

You tenderly licked the mark you left, then slowly sat upright, a trail of spit breaking between your tongue and her discolored skin. You wrapped your fingers in her hair and pulled her face up to look at your smirk.

“Lapis,” she croaked, “Joke’s over. Really. I’m not into this, okay? Just, stop. Please stop.”

“But I haven’t even started yet,” you said. Her eyes widened as your hand felt around her abdomen. You slowly reached downward, toward her most sensitive area. You look up at her reddened cheeks, her mouth curved down into a scowl. “You’re actually enjoying this.” You laughed.  You could tell she was embarrassed to some extent. No, she was humiliated. You liked that thought.

Without hesitation, your fingers thrust. Jasper groaned. “Lapis, that hurts, damn it!” You rubbed it hard until her shaky breaths caught in her throat, and her legs closed in toward you, stretching the ropes holding them. You abruptly stopped the motion, and pulled out.

“Hey… keep going…”

“Look at me, Jasper,” you said, pushing yourself up to face her. She opened her eyes. “I can’t,” she said heavily, “Can’t see you…”

You knew how that felt. She’d sometimes use so much force on you that all your senses seemed to explode and die. The fact that you made her feel that way…

“Exactly,” you said happily. Then you lean in close to her ear, and whisper, “You’re not in any place to tell me what to do, tiger-stripes.”

Some small, delicate-sounding noise formed in her throat, like a stifled sob. It must have felt so weird for her, being forced into anything. It’s no wonder she was so quick to get overstimulated. You were surprised she was even capable of talking. But then, she was much tougher than you.

Which is what made you feel even more amazing.

“You aren’t finishing until I allow it,” you said, relishing every word. “I wanna hear you beg.” 

Jasper shut her eyes again. Her horniness must have begun to overwhelm her, because she was quick to give in. “P-please, finish me off already…”

“Oh, I’ll be finishing you off, Jasper, be patient.” She looked confused, which made your smile widen. But you didn’t dwell on it. You lowered yourself once again.  You heard her moan as her legs shook around you. You resist the urge to gag at her taste and kept teasing her until she cried out, “Please, just do it already!”

You pressed your palm flat and rub until she drew in a loud, shuddery breath, spasms rocketing through her body.

"Now it's your turn," you said.  You stood up, pulling off the top of your bikini, tossing it over your head.  You kicked off the bottom half, impatient now with your arousal.  "I'm ready."

“You... can't make me," Jasper gasped.

You picked up the knife lying on the log behind you.  You held the blade in front of her neck.  "I'm not fucking around."

"H-How long," Jasper stammered, "have you had that thing?"

"I left the house with it."

"Lapis, this is sick—"

You yanked a fistful of hair.  She yelped with pain.  "Was it you who told me once before that it's the most innocent looking girls who are kinkiest in bed?  Do it!  Suck me off!"

You released her hair, and she bent over awkwardly.  She could work magic with her mouth.  In a second, she had you feeling more vulnerable than you had left her, and you clenched your teeth to prevent yourself from screaming.

When you came down from your high, you were both a shuddering, sweaty mess.  "I'm glad you came with me," you said.  You took the knife and cut away the ropes binding her ankles to the trees.  "Don't move."

You had plenty of rope to spare.  You forced her legs together while she made all kinds of anxious, incomprehensible noises, and bound her ankles tightly.  "I was never planning on going back home," you said as you worked on the rope.  "Were you?"

"You can't— You can't keep me here forever—"

"We'll see about that."  You took the other end of a rope that attached to a heavy stone, and tied it to her legs.  "Don't worry.  You won't be alone."

"Wh-what are you doing—"

You cut another length of rope, sat primly on the forest floor, and tied your own legs together with hers.  "Don't you hate this planet?  There are places like this, but then people destroy them.  Soon everything beautiful in this world is going to be destroyed.  But I don't have to be around to see it."

"You're not gonna—"

"It was your fault.  You decided to tag along for the ride.  You thought you were in control, didn't you?  Well, I've been planning this from the very beginning."

"STOP THIS!" she screamed.  She fought more, making your legs bounce uncomfortably up and down.

You held up the knife, but she continued struggling.  "What the hell is that supposed to do, you're gonna kill me anyway!"

You put your back into pushing the heavy stone.  Jasper was making this really difficult.  "Let's leave this miserable life!" you yelled, your voice cracking with the strain of exertion.  "TOGETHER!"

With one last heave, the stone splashed into the lake.  In desperation, Jasper bit the ground to keep from slipping under.  You closed your eyes and felt the coldness engulf you.

And then, the world went blissfully quiet.  Everything disappeared.  You were rocked back and forth by Jasper's struggling body.  You heard her empty her lungs in one breath of air.  You wrapped your arms around her, burrying your head in her chest.

It took a minute for her to stop moving.  Her body relaxed, sinking forward against yours, and the world was peaceful.

She might have been twice your size.  She might have been built with a body that could crush a man's skull between her thighs.  But you spent half your life underwater, and your lungs were stronger than hers.  You stayed awake, enjoying the coldness and the silence.

This was it.

You were going to die.

You allowed your eyes to open.  You stared out into the gloom of the lake.  Through the murky water, you watched Jasper's hair swirl around you.

The moon had risen.  You could see its rays poking through the water.  The muddy, ugly, mostly black water.

But the parts where the moon's rays shined through were a dark blue.  Not the type of blue you wore.  Not the blue of the sky, the blue of your eyes, or the blue of your hair.  It wasn't beautiful.

You slipped into unconsciousness, thinking about the last sight you would ever see.  Such an ugly, inferior shade of blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to dedicate this chapter to my friend Mimmy who gave me the frozen chicken idea. I vowed that I would stick that in whether it fit or not, which it really didn't. Still, thank you, Mimmy. None of this would have been possible without you.  
> I would also like to thank my moirail for writing the explicit rape scene.  
> And I would l would also like to apologize to my mom. If you are reading this, please don't kick me out of the sewing room.
> 
> Sometimes I get annoyed at the second person perspective, because I'd like to go deeper into backstory at times. I've decided a few things about Jasper and Peridot. Jasper was teased a lot because of her skin, so she made it into a symbol of power for herself. Peridot was called "Robot Fingers" and the two became friends because they were both social outcasts. Jasper made her way in life using artificial bravado that eventually became her genuine personality. She's a control freak because, obviously, backstory. She has a lot of feelings about why a person's outer appearance has everything to do with who they are because, obviously, backstory.


	12. For Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis has done many things she regrets, and questions whether she even deserves Steven's friendship.

You woke up with a sudden start.  You were confused, because the room wasn’t dark and dusty, it was white and blindingly bright—

You remembered a nightmare you had.  A nightmare about you.  You could see yourself standing over you with a knife, and you couldn’t move your limbs—

You were frantic, but you couldn’t move.  You couldn’t even blink and block out the sight of the white ceiling.  You knew where you were once the events came flooding back to you.  You were in some sort of mental ward, obviously, but how the hell did you survive…

You became aware of a slow, steady beeping.  It was somewhat faint; it wasn’t coming from right next to you.  As your senses awoke, you heard it clearer and clearer.  You blinked slowly, and became aware that you were in a hospital bed.  You slowly turned your head on your pillow to follow the direction of the artificial, steady metallic noises.

You blinked.  No matter how many times you closed your eyes, that image was still there when you reopened them.

Fucking shit.

She was lying on her back in the bed next to you.

Jasper, her still figure obscured mostly by machines, clad in a thin, white hospital gown, a long, thin tube snaking out of her throat.

Your eyes widened.  You sat up with a start, staring and staring to get a better look at her.

She wasn't dead.

And neither were you.

The scream didn't leave your throat.  Even as every detail came back to you in full, crystal clear, HD vividness from your own perspective this time.  You saw her beneath you, struggling and fighting, you felt the knife in your hand— Your head was reeling.  It was all real.  You did all that.

You threw the thin sheets off of yourself.  You felt the pinching sensation of a tube connected to your arm.  Without another thought, you ripped it out and stood.  You wobbled unsteadily on your feet, and spread your arms to catch your balance.  "Whoa," you whispered.

As soon as you could stand you found the door and threw it open.  You stumbled through an unfamiliar hallway, dazed and disoriented by all the movement.  Strangers in white coats hurried past you.  You paused in the middle of the confusion while the world seemed to spin around you.

You closed your eyes for a split second, and you saw her again.  You spun around, waiting for her to come after you, clutching something made of glass in her hand.

You broke into a run.  You ran past the white-coated strangers, stumbling blindly through everything.  You collided straight into a wall, and picked yourself up.  You hear crashing footsteps behind you, and continued right on running.  A hand grabbed your wrist.

 _"NO!"_ you screamed.

Hands grabbed at you from all sides.  The hands didn't belong to Jasper.  They belonged to the white-coated strangers.  They were asking you questions, telling you things you couldn't understand.

You had no idea what they were saying.  Your legs lost support of themselves, and you were held up only by the gripped you.  "LET GO OF ME!" you screeched.

"Shh—"

"Calm down—"

“You're okay—"

"SHE'S GOING TO KILL ME!" you screamed.

"No one's going to kill you, it's alright—"

"DON'T TAKE ME BACK THERE!"

You wrenched your arm out of the strangers' grips and fell to the floor.  Your chest suddenly exploded with searing pain.  You couldn't breathe, your lungs had failed you...

With your last burst of strength, you clawed at the doctors who stuck their heads in your face, yelling and screaming words that even you couldn't make out anymore.

More and more of them surrounded you.  You curled up on the floor to block out the sight of them.  A hand took your arm and tugged.  A prickling sensation of a needle stabbed your body.  The world started slipping, you began blacking out, and you struggled to stay conscious.

The next time you awoke wasn't sudden.  Your body and mind slowly dragged themselves out of a terrifying dark dreamlike state where you couldn't move, but you remembered everything.

You didn't die, but you were going to.  Instead of dying by your own hand, Jasper was going to murder you.  She was going to tear apart your body limb from limb and make you pay for dominating and using her body.  You weren't going to drown slowly and peacefully in the water like you had planned to.

Every time you took a sharp breath, your lungs felt like they were being stabbed.  You wanted to vomit, you wanted to run, but your body was refusing to respond to any commands.  It was like your brain and your limbs had been disconnected, sticking you in a terrifying limbo.

When you were finally able to move your fingers, you took a look at your surroundings.  It seemed like you were in the same room as before.  You pushed yourself into a sitting position, ignoring the paralyzing pain in your lungs. 

You were in a much smaller room.  Your bed was the only one there.  You were completely alone.

You swung your legs off the bed and fell to the floor.  You crawled around the room, feeling the air to make sure there was no one else there.  You dragged yourself to the door.  This wasn’t good enough.  You needed to be far, far away from here.  Somewhere Jasper could never find you.

Unless she decided to come after you again.

You reached for the door handle and pulled.  It wasn’t moving the way you wanted it to.  You jiggled it for a while, before coming to the painful conclusion that it was locked.

You curled up on the floor, wishing everything had gone as you planned it.  A pain in your left arm made you realize that you had ripped the tubes out when you fell out of bed.  Something about that must have been what summoned the doctor.  He came into your room, stuffing keys into his pocket.  He picked you up and placed your stiff, unstruggling body back into bed.  He spoke softly, some meaningless words about how you were fine.  About how the other girl was fine.  About how he didn’t need to know what happened, but you should be prepared for questions.

You didn’t say a word as he examined you.  He happily informed you that you suffered barely any damage aside from a cracked rib.  “Sometimes, people who perform CPR can be a little overenthusiastic.  I’ve broken a few ribs myself.”  Was he trying to make you laugh?

“What happened,” you finally brought yourself to ask.

“I don’t know the whole story.  I believe you were rescued.”

“How.”

“I think your father might have some of the answers you want.”

Your father.  You forgot that you had a father.  From outside the room, you heard the doctor explaining to him that the damage done was mostly psychological, and you would probably be fine eventually, but for now, you should be treated delicately.

Your father.  He came into the room, looking very nervous.  He stood next to the doctor, as far away from you as he could possibly be when the door shut behind him.  “Uhh.  Lapis.”

“Do _you_ know what happened?  Why am I not dead?”

He rubbed his neck.  “I don’t really know.  I think a friend noticed you were missing and called the police…  When did you run away?”

“Did you even _notice_ I was gone?”

“Well, yeah—”

“How long did it take you?”

“I—”

“Who called the police?”  Was it someone in your music class?  Was it your friend the violinist, wondering if you had taken his advice and tried to run away?

“Some girl… I don’t know who she is.”

“So _what happened?”_ you screamed.

“Uhh.  I think the police were searching for you, or maybe someone on the lake—  No, let’s see…  They found your friend’s car, but it was really badly damaged.  So from there….  No, I’m not the person to tell you this story.”

“I should be dead,” you said.  “I should have died.  _She_ should have died, neither of us should be here…  SOMEONE HAS TO TELL ME WHAT’S GOING ON!”

“Uhh…”

You curled up on the bed and sobbed.  Your father made no move toward you.  He tried to ask you why you left, where you were going, how you wound up in the lake….  You refused to talk.  Soon, he gave up and left.  He came back the next day, but your voice was gone.  You couldn’t speak if you wanted to.  You had become temporarily mute.

They deemed you sane enough to keep your door unlocked.  You wandered out into the hallway and looked into the windows of other rooms.  You were completely fine, really, at least your body was, beside for your cracked rib.  It was only your mind that was reeling, your dreams that plunged you into horror, and your voice that just wouldn’t work.

No one was going to answer your questions, and now you couldn’t answer any of theirs.

You passed rooms, occasionally hearing sounds from inside them that didn’t interest you.  One of the doors was open.  You started to walk right past it, until a voice from inside made you do a double take.

“NO, I’M NOT GOING TO STOP YELLING AT YOU!  YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST RUN AWAY WITHOUT TELLING ME AND NEARLY DIE?  YOU WERE GONE FOR NEARLY A WEEK!  YOU WOULDN’T EVEN ANSWER YOUR PHONE!”

It was impossible not to recognize that voice.  Peridot had the most distinctly obnoxious voice of anyone you knew.

You peeked into the room.  You recognized it as your previous room, because of the empty bed by the door and the occupied bed by the window.  Jasper was still there, lying exactly as you left her.  Her head was obscured by Peridot, who stood over her, shoulders hunched and shaking.  “You thought you’d just take your manic pixie girl off on a little vacation.  When were you planning on letting _me_ know where you were?”

She snatches something out of Jasper’s hands.  You risk taking a further peek, but you can’t tell what Peridot is holding.  “I can’t read this,” she mutters.

It’s a notepad.  Jasper still has the tube snaking out of her throat.  She snatches at the notepad until Peridot hands it back.  You watch her scribble something on it.  “You want to know exactly what happened?” she asks.  “Alright.  After you left, I called you about six times.  Did you see any of my texts?”

Jasper shakes her head.

“Great.  That’s good, because I sounded like a frantic idiot.  Anyway, I checked at your house to make sure you weren’t passed out or wasted.  _I_ was the one who filed the missing persons report.  I thought you’d kill me for it, but if it weren’t for me, you’d be dead!”

It was Peridot.  She was the friend your father had mentioned.  But she wasn’t your friend.  “I figured you ran off with Lapis.  I wanted to make sure you weren’t doing anything stupid.  I didn’t know you’d be drowning.”

She sounds hurt.  You think you’d be hurt too if your best friend chose her girlfriend over you.  How hurt would she be if everything had worked out the way it should have…?

Jasper took the notepad and wrote something.  “How did they find you.  I don’t know.  You left clues all over.  You’re not exactly hard to spot.”

 _Your pretty blue hair and my pretty stripes don't mean anything here._ She was wrong.  You were about the most conspicuous pair that could possibly show up anywhere.  Perhaps your pretty blue hair and Jasper’s pretty stripes were what saved your lives.

You didn’t realize that you were standing right in the doorway until you locked eyes with Jasper.  Your first instinct was to run; she couldn’t shout, you would have gotten away, but her stare seemed to lock you in place….

Slowly, shakily, still locking eyes with you, she raised her finger until it was pointing right at you.  “Huh?”  Peridot turned around.  She looked more tired and cranky than usual.  “Oh.  Looks like you have a visitor.”

Jasper didn’t take her eyes off you while she scribbled something else in the notepad.  Peridot took it and squinted.  “I _really_ have no idea what this says,” she said, narrowing her eyes at the page.  “Lazuli, while you’re here, can you read this?  Oh, wait…”  She looked at Jasper, at you, then squinted back at the paper.  “She’s… going to kill me?”

**~ ~ ~**

You weren’t awfully fond of Peridot.  You weren’t quite sure how to feel about Jasper, but you knew that you disliked Peridot.  You wondered often exactly how they ever became friends when they seemed to have nothing in common.  Perhaps that was why they were friends.

Peridot wasn't powerfully built.  She was small and slight like you.  Perhaps the reason they were friends was because she was one of the few people who wasn't terrified of her.

Before you disliked her, you just felt sorry for her.  With you and Jasper, she was a very invisible third wheel.

You remember feeling miserable and knocking on Jasper's door in the middle of an awfully desperate night.  She was happy to have you.  You were naked and trapped underneath her when Peridot walked casually into the room, glancing in your direction.

"Ah," she said.  "I was wondering what all the noise was."

"PERIDOT!" Jasper shouted.  "How the hell did you get here?"

"I've been in your room.  For the past one hundred twenty or so minutes.  You were also in your room approximately ten minutes ago, and I was woken up approximately three minutes ago.  I hope you can pardon my... intrusion."

"S-stay out of here!"

"Right.  That's fine, I actually just came here to play with your cat."

You thought at that point that maybe Peridot was someone you could be friends with.

But that wasn't the first time she walked in on you.  She was there a few times.  She was there when Jasper took out her anger on your face.  You remember her expression as she watched.  Unchanging, uninterested.  She muttered something vague about the cat when she walked out.

She knew about what happened.  You heard Jasper bragging to her in crowded hallways about the things she did to you.  "I really don't care," you heard her say.  "Just don't get arrested.  Otherwise I really have no interest in knowing what you do in bed with Lapis Lazuli."

It wasn't intimidation.  It wasn't fear.  Peridot had no reason to be afraid of Jasper.  Not the way you did.  Still, she stood by and watched you get beaten, and never said a word.

She interfered in your business only once.

At the absolute worst of times.

**~ ~ ~**

You found your strength and your voice at the same time.  You lunged at Peridot, grasping her collar and slamming her against the wall.  "THIS IS YOUR FAULT!" you screamed.  "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, YOU COULDN'T LET ME JUST FUCKING DIE!"

Peridot yelped.  You pulled her toward you and slammed her head back against the wall.  "WHY'D YOU HAVE TO RUIN MY DEATH, YOU LITTLE SHIT?!"

Peridot opened her mouth and shouted.  "SOMEONE HELP!  I'M BEING ATTA—!"

You shoved a fist into her mouth seconds too late.  More white-coated strangers burst into the room, pulled you off her, and sent you back into the dark and terrifying limbo.  You could hear your father's voice beside you, whispering meaningless assurances that everything was going to be okay.  He didn't know anything.  No one knew anything.

Salvation came when you were allowed to leave the hospital.  Your father took you home, and you refused to answer any of his questions.  The doctor explained to him that you had just been through a trauma, and you couldn't be expected to talk about it just yet.

It would take time.

You didn't want any more time.

You wanted to be dead.

It was even worse now.  Your father was giving you attention for the first time in as long as you could remember.  He checked on you as much as three times a day to make sure you were still in the house.  Finally, he came bearing news.

"I thought you might want to know," he told you, standing awkwardly in the middle of your room.  "Your friend was finally able to give a report about what happened.  You're just going to need to verify her story with the police.  They're just going to ask you if it's the same story."

"Which friend?" you asked.

"The one you were with," he answered.  "She's still in the hospital.  But, she'll probably live."

"What did she say."  You were terrified.  Why wasn't your father terrified?  Why did he seem his usual timid self?  You remembered the time when you were a little girl, thinking you were going to be sent to jail for dropping your baby brother.  You had no idea.

"Okay, so her story is that you both ran away.  Is that true?"

"I..." you looked at the ground.  "Yes."

He looked at a piece of paper he had gripped in his hand.  "Let's see.  You drove to the lake, and..."  Your heart sank.  "Someone, a stranger, snuck up on you and attacked both of you.  It says here...."  He paused.  "'They overpowered us and knocked me out.  I guess they got Lapis, too.  There were at least three of them.  I didn't see their faces.  But they were big.'  Is that it?  Were you attacked?"

What.

What?

That was her story?

Did she remember wrong, or....

Of course.  She wouldn't want the real story getting out.  She was knocked out by three big strangers, not tiny, weak little you.  She defended you to protect herself.

All you could manage was a half-hearted, "Yes."  But when the police asked you the same questions, you had little new details to add.  "I was terrified," you said.  "I couldn't move.  She tried to defend me, but they knocked her out with... a rock, I think.  And... they must have been scared of her.  So they tied her up, and just told me to do whatever they said.  I was too scared to fight them."

You didn't know what the strangers looked like, you said.  No, you did.  One of them had a mohawk.  As for why you were both found stripped naked, you said that they didn't do anything to you.  As for her....  "I can't talk anymore," you said.

You verified that every word of Jasper's story was true.  They treated you delicately and carefully, asking questions in soft, soothing tones.  Jasper, in some way, was right about appearances being everything.

No one would suspect you.

You almost wanted to turn yourself in.  Let everyone know exactly what happened.  But you were too afraid.  For now, you would let Jasper take control and let her decide what the story was.

You didn't ask for news of her.  As far as you knew, she was kept at the hospital for weeks.  You spent the rest of the summer wandering around your house, around the town, and to the beach.

You couldn't step in the water.  It was too dangerous.  Too tantalizing.  This wasn't a calm lake.  This was the ocean.  One foot in there and you knew that you would let it carry you away.

The last swim you ever took would be in that lake.  The thing you loved most was gone, because you loved it too much.

So you distracted yourself.  You stood by the ocean and played the violin, the flute, and the guitar for as long as you could stay on your feet.

By the time school started up again, you had become a flawless musician.

You didn't see Jasper in the hallways.  But you saw Peridot.  And she saw you.  Peridot must have known what you did.  You had a feeling that Jasper might have told her.  Or at least your screaming fit might have hinted at one detail.

Peridot must have known, because only she could have spread through the school that you were to be feared.  No one could agree on exactly why you were meant to be feared, but the rumors were that you had lured someone to a lake and drowned them.  Not everyone believed those rumors.

"I don't get what's going around," said your friend the violinist.  "Those rumors are crazy.  People've been calling you all sorts of nasty things."

“Oh, it’s all true,” you told him.  You were intending to let the truth die as Jasper wanted it to.  But you couldn’t let things go on with your friend as they always did.  He, at least, deserved to know the part he played in this.  “You told me that I should run away.”

“I _did?”_

“So I left.  And she followed me.  So I tried to get her out of the way.  It didn’t work.”

“I’m confused,” he said.  “You… drowned Jasper?  Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m not saying anything.”

He caught on with everyone else eventually.  You did nothing to discourage the rumors.

Because nothing could be worse than the truth.

Jasper came back a few weeks into the year.  You didn’t stay back to chat and ask about her summer.  You didn’t even get close enough to look at her face.  You had begged your father to leave Beach City that summer, but he insisted it wasn’t necessary.  Besides, he didn’t have the money.

You were small enough to avoid a confrontation.  But the feeling was mutual.  Jasper clearly had no desire to talk to you.

She left sometimes for days.  Her presence was, as Peridot said, conspicuous.  So you could feel it when she was gone.

She was so good at avoiding you that it was like she was never there to begin with.  The few times that one of you was caught looking in the direction of the other, she would freeze up, or flinch, then turn and walk quickly away.

If you were scary enough for Jasper to be afraid of you, clearly you weren’t a force to be trifled with.

You only lived in fear for a couple months until it became clear that she really wanted nothing more to do with you.  Then again, at this point, neither did anyone else.

Looking back on those months, it makes sense to you that the best summer of your life followed the worst.

**~ ~ ~**

Just as the snow was beginning to melt, it falls again, thick and heavy.  You make your way to the Beach House in the middle of the snow fall.

Pearl lets you in, gushing as usual about how wonderful it is to see you.  You notice two new additions to the space.  One is a wheelchair at the bottom of the stairs.  The other is an IV next to Steven’s bed.  At first, you think he’s asleep, until you see that he’s lying on his side, leafing through his gem book.  “Hi, Lapis,” he greets without turning around.

“Hi!” you say in a falsely cheery voice, and cringe immediately at how it sounds.  “How… how’s it going?”

Steven closes the book and sits up.  “Okay,” he answers.  “I mean, I can’t eat anymore, so I got this IV stuck in me.”

“That’s a bummer.”

Steven sighs.  “But… I have to keep my chin up, because there’s nothing I can do.  And they also said this might be temporary.  I never know how I’m gonna be tomorrow.  For all I know, I might be cured.  Anyway, what’s that thing you say?  Let’s put that sad crap aside for now?”

“STEVEN!” Pearl shouts from downstairs.

You grin.  Steven snorts.  “Heh, forgot about Pearl…. Oh!  I almost forgot!”

“Hm?  What’d you almost forget?”

“PEARL!” he calls.

Pearl hurries up the steps.  She bends over him, looking terrified.  “What’s wrong?  Is everything okay?”

“Get the thing!”

“The—oh.”  Pearl calms down and smiles.  “Right.  _That_ thing.”  She skips off down the steps to retrieve the thing.

“Steven, what thing?”

“I decided it was about time I emptied my savings.  I asked Pearl to buy something.  She’s got great taste.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll see!” says Steven cheerfully.

Pearl comes back up the steps, bearing a small, rectangular box.  “I wanna give it to her,” Steven says.  Pearl hands him the box, and he holds it out to you.

“It’s… for me?”

“Yeah!  I got you a present!”

Steven and Pearl both smile expectantly as you accept the box.  You open it carefully, and pull out a long, silver chain.  Hanging down from it is a deep blue teardrop-shaped stone.  “Oh…”

“You see?” Pearl exclaims.  “It’s—”

“Lapis lazuli.  It looks like my gem.”

“Do you like it?” Steven asks.  His grin tells you that he already knows the answer.

You dangle the stone in front of your face.  “I can’t believe you did this,” you breathe.  Your eyes are stinging.  “I… I should really get you something to pay you back.  What do you want, a matching rose quartz necklace?”

“No, I got you _this_ to pay you back for all your stories!”

“Lapis, what do you say?” asks Pearl obnoxiously.

“Thank you,” you say.  “I love y– I love it.  It’s beautiful.”

 “Well?” says Steven.  “Put it on!”

“Yes, let’s see it on you.”

You slip the chain over your neck.  The stone falls below your chest.

“It’s huge,” you comment.  “I hope it wasn’t too expensive.”

“Oh, you should _never_ ask how much money a gift cost.  That isn’t proper gift receiving etiquette.”  Pearl smiles teasingly.  “The necklace was Steven’s idea.  I was hoping you didn’t have several lapis lazuli necklaces already.  I mean… growing up, all my friends thought I was the _easiest_ person to shop for.  I have a whole collection of pearl necklaces, pearl earrings… you name it.  Back in our school years, Garnet, Rose and I promised to never get each other jewelry for our birthdays.”

“What about Amethyst?” you ask.

“Oh, Amethyst loves any type of gift.  She never throws or gives anything away.”

“Actually,” Steven speaks up, “I got the idea from Connie.  She thought it would be cool if we all could have real gems.  Then—”  He giggles.  “We could all dress up and put on a show!”

You and Pearl both laugh uncomfortably.

**~ ~ ~**

Connie isn’t a gem.  But she is a recurring character in many of your stories, because she is Steven’s most frequent visitor.  You don’t like to tell stories about her while she’s there, because she criticizes your characterization of her more than anyone.  “I would _not_ say that.  Also, I know a few ways you can make this more interesting.”

“Are you kidding me?” Steven said.  “That is _totally_ something you’d say!  I think Lapis has you down perfectly.”

Steven has managed to bully you into playing all of Connie’s favorite movie soundtracks for her.  Connie loves your playing, and despite her occasional interruptions, she loves your stories, too.

She seems to look up to you.

You can’t stand it.

Connie is the first person to suggest that you write a book.  “Or a movie,” she adds.  “You could even score it!  It’d be a lot of work, but it’s been done before.”

“I’m not a writer.”

“So you’d hire a writer!  You have so many ideas.”

It’s difficult to explain that your only inspiration is Steven.  You couldn’t imagine making a movie about his silly little adventures.  Would anyone actually watch that?  You don’t want Connie looking up to you.  The difficult thing about her is that she’s stubborn.  “Oh,” she notes.  “You’re wearing the necklace!”

“Oh.  Yeah.”  You take a delicate, casual sip from a glass of water, wondering if the stone really would dissolve in it.  “It’s nice.”

“I thought that all the gems should have one.  But then Pearl told me that she and Garnet already have lots of themed jewelry, and it’s piling up.”  She pauses.  “I wonder if Jasper and Peridot get those, too.”

For the second time in your life, you nearly die from water filling your airways.  You choke on it and Connie pats you awkwardly on the back.  “They… are real people, right?” Connie asks.  “I mean, everyone else in your stories are AU versions of real people.  Steven, do you know them?”

“Nope,” he says.  “Lapis, _do_ you know them?”

“No, I made them up.”

“I can _tell_ when you’re lying,” Steven says, crossing his arms.  “You get that same look as when I ask you why you don’t swim and stuff like that.  If you know Jasper and Peridot, could you get a picture of them?  I’ve been trying to draw them, but I don’t really have a reference.”

“I can’t,” you say.  “They’re gone.  They left a long time ago.  I only used them because they had gem names.  I really don’t know them that well.”

“So for all we know, Jasper could actually be really nice.  And Peridot could be really sympathetic and caring.”

“Yep.  They could be anything.”

"Hm."  Connie glares suspiciously at you.  "I think you know more than you're letting on."

"Sure.  Let's all play detective.  Are we all going to pry into each others' personal lives here?"

Connie opens her mouth to retort, but you're saved by a ringing that comes from her pocket.  Connie sighs and answers her phone.  "Yes, mother?  Oh.  Okay.  I'll be right out."  She closes her old fashioned flip phone that looks like it came straight out of a futuristic movie from the early 2000's.  "I gotta go.  My dad needs me home."

"Nooo..." Steven whispers.  "Don't go.  Let's run away."

"Right."  Connie glances at the IV stand next to Steven's bed.  "Is that a joke?"

"If you're thinking of running away, I wouldn't recommend it," you pipe up.

"I'm sorry," Connie says.  "I'll... I'll see you soon.  If I can't come tomorrow, I'll call you."

“Yeah.  See you."

It's incredible how much of an effect on Steven's mood that girl has.  As soon as she's gone, the smile is gone from his face.  You wish you had Connie's gift of being able to turn around his mood like that.

“I wish you two could be friends,” Steven says.  “I still think you have a lot in common.”

“Like what,” you ask him coldly.  “Besides for the fact that we’re both loners.”

“Well, you care a lot about music, and Connie cares a lot about books and movies.  She likes strong female characters whose lives don’t revolve around romance, and save the day using wit and special talents.  And… I think you remind her of some of them.”

Your cheeks redden.  “But—I’m the villain!  Wh-what do I have to do—  Did she tell you this—?”

“I think you stopped being the villain when you chained yourself to the enemy and dragged her down to the bottom of the ocean.  I think since the beginning you were more of a… chaotic neutral.  Or something like that.”

“Alright, fine.  But it’s weird that you think she looks up to me.”

Steven grins.  “Maybe it’s a sister complex.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“But it could be.  It should be!  I mean it, you and Connie should really be friends!  She’s…”  Steven laughs awkwardly.  “She’s gonna need new friends soon.”

You haven’t thought about that before.  Once Steven is gone, Connie will be too stubborn to make herself some new friends.  “Tell me _one thing_ that we have in common,” you say.  “Because I don’t love music the way Connie loves movies and books.  I don’t analyze the music and treat it like it’s the most important thing in the world.”

“Uhh…”  Steven pauses, thinking hard.  “You’re both nice… but only to people you know.”

“Okay… stop.”  You don’t know where to begin.  For one thing, you are not a strong female heroine with a life that didn’t revolve around romance once, however messed up the romance was.  For another, Steven thinks you’re _nice._   “Connie and I have about as much in common as… I don’t know, hand sanitizer and marihuana.”

“What... what do those have to do with each other?”

“Nothing!” you exclaim.  “I don’t have anything to do with Connie, and I don’t _need_ to have anything to do with her!  She’s… she’s a good kid.”

Steven looks puzzled.  You sigh.  “Connie… doesn’t have friends because she’s anti-social and kind of awkward.  She’s not like me.  If she _really_ wanted friends, she could have friends.  She’s not…  You only think we’d get along because we’re both friends with you.  I promise you, that’s the _only_ thing we have in common.  You… you wouldn’t be saying any of this if you knew _anything_ about me.”

“So?” Steven yells.  You flinch at his volume.  “You’re right, I _don’t_ know anything about you!  I tried asking you once, but you keep dodging around everything I try to ask you!  Why don’t you tell me?  Just tell me all that stuff, and you won’t have to keep acting all dodgy when I ask you stuff!”

“Nevermind.  Just forget about it.”

“Tell me!  You remind me all the time that I don’t know anything about you!  I don’t even know anything about the _gem_ you!”

“I said _forget about it.”_

“I’M GONNA DIE SOON!” he shouts.  “Whatever you tell me, I’m _NOT_ gonna have much time to use it against you!”

“You’re _seriously_ gonna use that against me?”

Steven sinks down into the pillows behind him.  “It’s your choice,” he says.  “Obviously.  But I used to keep secrets from you too, you know.  I had this really big secret that would have changed everything if you found out.  And you _did_ find out, and it _did_ change everything.  So… whatever huge thing you’ve got hidden from me, I wanna know what it is.  I’ll only let it change the way I think about you if it’s a bigger secret than the one I kept hidden from you.”

You clench your hands.  He’s right.  At this point, he deserves to know who you are.  “Almost two years ago,” you whisper, and Steven sits back the way he does when you tell a story.  “I wanted to kill myself.”

Steven almost never interrupts when you’re in the middle of a story.  But he does now.  “What?  Why?”

“It’s a long story.  I grew up in a bad home.  Anyway, I did it.  I almost did it.  And it would have worked.  I would have died.  I tried to drown myself.”

Steven looks horrified.  “How… is that… is that the big secret you were keeping?  Did you think I would have thought you were crazy?”

You shake your head.  “I wouldn’t try to do it now,” you say.  “You’ve taught me, and I know that life is precious and short.  But that’s not the worst part.”

Steven leans forward.  He reaches for your hand.  “Lapis, I had no idea.  I thought you looked lonely before but I didn’t know—”

You keep your hands firmly clenched in your lap.  “Steven, I tried to take someone with me.”

Steven draws his hand back.  “Uhh… did they also want to—”

“No.  I just….”  You breathe deeply through your nose.  You’ve never had this much difficulty telling a story before.  “She got in the way.  I was planning to do it, but she forced her way between me and the water.  So I tried to take her down with me.  I just… I probably could have done it without her.  But I didn’t want to make it seem like she won.”  You can see her eyes looking into yours.  First, leering and terrifying.  Next, wide and terrified.  “I didn’t want… to be another tragic victim of the world.  I lashed out so that no one would ever feel sorry for me.  I didn’t want it to seem like I’d been defeated.  I would have rather gone down as a villain than a tragic victim.  But again, I wouldn’t do anything like that today.  I wouldn’t think about it.”

Steven blinks.  “Was it Jasper?” he asks.

Your heart leaps into your chest.  You hang your head, concealing your eyes under your bangs, and nod.  “How’d you guess.”

“You… made it kind of obvious.  What did she _do_ to you?”

“You’re asking what _she_ did to _me.”_

“Well, if you wanted her dead…”  He pauses.  “And you didn’t make her sound like a very nice person.”

“She was _much_ worse than the Jasper in the story,” you say.  “She wanted to strip me of everything I was.  So I had to strip her of everything _she_ was.  And… she was powerful, and controlling.  I wanted to take that away from her.  But I did something terrible.  For a year, I didn’t _want_ any friends.  It would have been wrong if I was able to keep up friendships like nothing happened.  After what I did.”

“It’s… almost like you _wanted_ me to know all that,” Steven says.  “You practically told me everything, and I didn’t even realize.  But… I still don’t know the whole story.  I mean, I know it’s not like you had to fuse with her to save my life and avenge yourself.  And you had a reason for that in the story.  You sorta did it on the spur of the moment.”

“Lapis Lazuli had a determined look in her eyes.  Or something.  She _knew_ what she was gonna do.  And I did, too.  I was planning it for days.”

“Okay.  That _is_ a lot to take in.  You tried to kill someone.  Someone who sounds like a really awful jerk, but you still tried to kill someone.”

“Oh.”  You decide to throw this in, just for the heck of it.  “You might also wanna know that my car is stolen.”

“Are you _joking?”_

“No.  I don’t even have a driver’s license.”  It sounds funny when you admit it all out loud.  You almost want to laugh at how awful this sounds.

Steven raises his eyebrows.  “Is there anything _else_ I should know?”

“Okay.”  Might as well go all in.  “I used to smoke pot all the time with my friends, back when I had friends.”  At this, you do allow yourself to laugh.  “I tried acid once.  My friends took a video of me.  I thought I had water wings.  They had to hold me back to stop me from trying to fly off the building.”

“Acid?” Steven asks.  “Is that… a type of drug?”

“LSD, yep.”

“Is that where you—”

“Where I got the idea from?  Yeah.  But if you think that’s the end of it, there’s _still_ more.  I’m not a good person.  I didn’t even _used_ to be a good person.  Even when I was a little kid, my parents got divorced because of me.”  You still hang your head and laugh mirthlessly.  You can’t control the stray tear that slides down your face.  “It was hell, but it was also my fault.  And— Jasper wasn’t the only person I nearly killed.  I dropped my baby brother on his head once.”

“Okay—stop!”  Steven waves his hand.  You chuckle once more and fall silent.  Steven stares at you, looking as overwhelmed as you’d expect him to be.  “I get it!  You did lots and _lots_ of bad stuff.  You tried to kill someone and you stole a car, that’s kind of a big deal.  But I don’t know about the other stuff you told me.  I mean, you can’t _really_ blame yourself for dropping your brother on his head, unless that was also on purpose.  Was it on purpose?”

You shake your head.

“There we go.  I don’t know anything about drugs, but if you haven’t done them in over a year what am I supposed to say?  That stuff’s none of my business.  I don’t care about that.  But… how did you survive?  Did someone save you?”

“Peridot,” you answer.  “I used to hate her for it.  But now… I think I have to thank her.  If it wasn’t for her, I never would have met you.”  You lift your chin up and push the bangs out of your eyes so Steven can see your tearful smile.  “Does this change the way you think about me?”

“Is this why you won’t go swimming?”

“Yeah.  You guessed right, as usual.”

“Okay.”  Steven sighs.  “Yeah.  I… that kinda does change the way I think about you.  I’m gonna see you a bit differently.  But I definitely understand you better now.  I feel like we finally broke through that wall, yknow?”

“A… wall?”

“Yeah.  There was this big wall that you wouldn’t let me go past.  And… I get why you wouldn’t want me to know that stuff.  But it’s almost like you’ve been trying to tell me all this time.  Through your stories.  By making yourself into a scary gem who can steal the ocean and would give up her life for revenge.  Until now, I just thought the gem Lapis Lazuli didn’t do anything wrong.  But there’s more to her than that.  A lot more to her.”

“So you’ve finally realized.”

“But… she was still the gem I made fart noises at Mayor Dewey with.  She still risked her life to try and warn me about Peridot, and she still saved all of us in the end!  Maybe her reasons were a little selfish, but who knows what she would have done if she had things a little different?  I bet she would have spent a lot more time laughing.”

“You’re only saying all this because you’re my friend.”

“Maybe I am!” Steven says.  “Because you’re not a different person than you were a few minutes ago!  You’re still funny and talented, and you still come all the way through the snow to see me, and you try to make me happy.  You feel awful about all the things you did, and you said that you wouldn’t do it again, so I believe you.  It’s…”  Steven sits forward, pressing his eyebrows together.  “It’s almost like you’re just looking for stuff to blame yourself for.”

“And you think almost killing someone wasn’t my fault.”

 _“Almost_ killing someone!  You tried, but you didn’t.  Almost doesn’t cut it!  You didn’t kill Jasper, and you didn’t die, and now you have another chance at life.  Sorry, but that doesn’t make you a murderer.”

You flinch at the word murderer, though you’ve heard it before.  “I… I wish I could take your word for it, but I still feel like a murderer. Steven, you’re a really good person.  I know you’re trying to understand, but you can’t.  You’re just not at that level.  You’re too good.”

“Yeah, I know,” Steven says.  “People tell me that all the time.  My mom told me that before I was even born.  I may be stuck in bed with an IV but… people keep telling me I’m brave and wonderful.”  He shrugs his shoulders, staring straight at the wall.  “What if people didn’t tell me that?  If I didn’t have a dad and three aunts and friends who all love me and talk about how great of a person I am, I might not have ever thought I was what they say I am.  I might have wound up… more like you.”

“More like me.  Do you think you would have tried to kill someone?”

“Who knows.  I might have.”  You try to imagine Steven in your position.  Driving a car to his death.  Being crushed in Jasper’s arms.  His hair dyed blue, or maybe pink.  The image weirds you out, and you will yourself to stop thinking about it.  “I don’t mean more like you meaning bad, I mean… _thinking_ I was bad.  Because I think that if you were really a bad person, you wouldn’t be here right now.”

“You mean… I’d be dead?”

“No, I mean you wouldn’t be here all the time, trying to cheer me up and putting up with everyone.  Always caring about me and wanting to make sure I’m okay.  I can’t think of you as a bad person, Lapis.  I think…”  He looks down into his lap and mutters, “I think you were always a good person.  You just didn’t know it, because no one ever told you that.  People treated you like everything was your fault, so you believed that.”

Was that true?  You could hear your mother in your head, calling you deranged.  Jasper, accusing you of using her.  “If there were more people in my life like you… I wouldn’t be this way.”

“So you believe me?” Steven asks.  He looks you dead in the eye now.  “Lapis, if no one’s ever told you this before, let me be the first.  You’re a good person.  Not just because you’re talented at the flute and the violin, but because you’re funny and you’re a great friend.”

“You’re an idiot,” you say.  You let a few more tears fall, and you’re starting to become short of breath from trying to keep them in.  “You’d trust anyone.”

“That’s because I think anyone can be good.  You just have to—”  Steven draws in a deep sharp breath.  You look up from your lap and see that Steven is clutching at his chest.  “Keep—making people happy…”

“Steven…”  You put a tentative hand on his shoulder.  “Are you okay?”

“I’m—I’m fine!  Lapis….”  He takes advantage of your contact, and puts his hand on yours.  “You have to stop blaming yourself for stuff you can’t fix!  I know you’re good—”

“Alright!  Sure, but are you having an attack?”

Steven gasps.  He takes a few unsteady gulps of air, his eyes are starting to tear up, and he shakily whispers, “Do you believe me?”

“Y-yeah.  I mean, maybe someday I’ll be able to.  But you need help.  I’m—I’m gonna go get one of your aunts.”

Steven winces in pain.  He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out, so he only nods.  You release his shoulder and hurry downstairs, only to run smack into Garnet.

“Garnet!  Steven needs you, he’s—”

“I’m coming,” she says calmly.

You follow her up the stairs.  Steven is bent double.  Garnet bends over him, placing her hand on his back.  “Steven,” she says softly.  “Do you need your mask?”

He nods wordlessly.  Garnet reaches down next to his bed, picking up the mask that attached to the portable breathing machine that Pearl pointed out to you.  You watch uselessly as she places it over his face.  “It’s okay,” she says.  “Breathe.  There.  You’ve got it.”

“Is he—”

“He’s fine.”  Garnet repositions the pillows and helps Steven lie down on his back.  “Steven.  You’ve exerted yourself a lot today.  It’s time to rest.”

“I’ll go home,” you say.

You turn to leave.  You almost miss the quiet, muffled, “Wait…”

“Hm?”  You return to Steven’s bedside.  His eyes are drooping, but he gazes at you imploringly.

“Play me something?”

You look at Garnet.  She nods, almost threateningly, as though she’ll personally hurt you if you don’t accept Steven’s request.  “Yeah.  Sure.”

You haven’t brought any instruments.  The only instruments in the room are Steven’s ukulele, lying abandoned near his bed, and his colorful guitar on its stand.  You pick up the guitar and Garnet holds out a chair.

For the first time, you sing.

“I've heard it said,

That people come into our lives for a reason….”

You don’t know where you would be if you had never met Steven.

But it’s clear that he’s changed you, for good.

When you’re finished your song, he’s asleep.  You put his guitar carefully back on its stand.  You don’t say goodbye to Garnet as you creep quietly down the stairs.  You managed to hold back your tears during your singing.  You didn’t want to ruin it.  But now, you need to go somewhere to cry.

 “Lapis Lazuli.”

A tear slips down your cheek before you can stop it.

“Thank you for coming.”

You wheel around.  Garnet is just standing there, stock-still and stoic as ever.  “Lapis, listen to me.”  She walks over to you, reaching out and putting a cold hand on your shoulder.  “I’m telling you this because you’re an adult.  And if you can’t handle it, you’re gonna have to face it anyway.”

She stands so close to you that you have to crane your neck to see whatever of her face isn’t obscured by her heavy shades.  “Wh-what…?”

“Steven doesn’t have much time left.  His life could end any day now.  It’s something we should all be prepared for.”

Your legs feel like they’re made of matchsticks.  You search her face for any hint of sadness.  Any hint of fear, of anything.  “How can you just… say that so easily?”

“Because I’ve accepted it already.  I’ve seen the signs, and there’s nothing we can do other than be there for him.”

“There…”  You glance back in the direction of Steven’s room.  “There isn’t… there isn’t _anything_ they can do?  There isn’t _any_ hope at all?”

“There’s always hope for a miracle,” Garnet says.

You can’t accept that.  Your head is reeling.  You latch your hands onto the front of Garnet’s shirt.  “There has to be something we can do!  He can’t die!  He’s the _best thing_ that’s happened to this world!  I’m—I can’t let this happen.  I’m not gonna let it happen!”

Garnet stands still as you clutch her shirt in your hands.  You’re shaking, holding onto her shirt as much for support as anything now.  “If you can manage that, we’ll all thank you on bended knee, but for now you’re helping enough by coming over and making him feel better.”

Your whole body trembles.  You dig your nails into the fabric of Garnet’s shirt.  “How… _how_ can you talk like this,” you seethe.  “Don’t you feel _anything?_   Behind those stupid goddamn shades, do you care about anything at all?”  Blindly, you reach out with one hand for her sunglasses, prepared to rip them off her face.

Garnet grabs onto your hand.  She grips it tightly, crushing your fingers.  With her other hand, she plucks yours cleanly off her shirt.  “That’s enough,” she says.  She reaches up, and you think she’s going to straighten her shades, but to your surprise, she slowly removes them.

You look into her eyes for the first time.  You think to yourself, _of course she’s a fusion,_ and remember that’s impossible.  Still, her eyes are two different colors.  One is bright red.  The other is electric blue.  And they’re both brimming with tears.  She speaks up, strongly and firmly, still gripping your hand.  “Pearl, Amethyst, Steven, even Greg are all my family.  And I am their support beam.  As much as I’d love to start falling to pieces, I can’t exactly afford to do that.”

You stare at her face, in awe of this strange and alien woman.  “I’m… I’m sorry.”

Garnet releases your hand.  “No one blames you for being upset, or even angry.  What’s happening to Steven isn’t fair.  If any of us could take his place, we would do it in this blink of an eye.  But we can’t.  This is hard on everyone.”

You look away from her weirdly colored eyes.  “I know.  I… shouldn’t have…”  You trail off.  You regret your outburst.

“Lapis, if it means anything, you’ve been doing a great job.  Your visits give Steven something to look forward to.  I don’t care about what kind of past you’ve had.”

“Wh-what do you mean, what kind of past I had.”

“I mean doing drugs and stealing a car.  Stuff that shoulda got you arrested.”

The blood rushes from your face.  “How do you know that.”

Garnet replaces her shades.  “I have future vision.”

“B-be serious!  Were you listening?!  How much of that did you hear?”

Garnet shrugs.  “I dunno, I was in and out, I heard something about doing weed and a water-wing acid trip… dropping a baby on its head, and the car thing.”

“Hoo boy…” you mutter.

“Yeah.  Hoo boy.”  With her shades back on, Garnet’s expression is once again unreadable.  “Jasper sounds like a dick, by the way.  I’d probably try and kill her too if I knew her.  I can’t stand a homophobe.”

“Uhh…”  How can you say this without divulging too much?  “She’s… a pretty huge lesbian.”

“Heh.  Pretty huge.”

Is she actually smiling?  You grimace at the opposite wall.  She’s laughing at a stupid slip you just made.  “In all seriousness,” Garnet continues, dropping the smile, “it sounds like you’ve had a messed up childhood.  It sounds like you’ve done things you regret.  But I promise you, whatever you’ve done, Pearl, Amethyst and I have done things that were a lot, _lot_ worse.”

“Like what…?” you ask.

“Things that would make your ears fall out.  We all have pretty shady pasts.  Amethyst was quite literally pulled out of the gutter.”

“I know,” you interrupt.  “She told me.”

“So you know that before Rose found her, she was roaming the streets as a filthy pickpocket.  And you may think that Pearl looks brittle, but I assure you she could beat someone four times your size.  And don’t even get me started on Rose.  We used to be monsters.  And look where we are now.  Raising a child together.”

You thought that Rose Quartz looked like a giant, fluffy person-shaped cone of cotton candy.  A kind, motherly sweetheart who gave her life to her unborn child.  “I’m sure you’ve asked yourself before if you even deserve to have a friend like Steven.  You’ve feared that you’d be a bad influence on him, haven’t you?”

You’re starting to think that Garnet really does have future vision.  “Yes,” you admit.

“Well, we’ve wondered that ourselves.  If we had the right to try to raise a child after all the things we’ve done.  But we did it for Rose, and we did it to help Greg.  And we did it because we love Steven more than anything.  If we kept up sitting in pools of our own shame, Greg would have had to find Steven other guardians.  And then where would they be.”

“He… definitely wouldn’t have been able to live with him?”

“He would have been in even more crippling debt.  We can’t undo the things we’ve done in our past.  Not me, not Pearl or Amethyst, and not you.  You may never be able to forgive yourself.  You can blame yourself for the rest of your life, but that won’t do anything for anyone.  The point of going on living isn’t to be the ultimate perfect person.”  She sighs, reaches behind her shades, and wipes her eye.  Suddenly, she looks exhausted.  “The point is to be a better person than the one you were yesterday.  And to promise yourself that you’ll be an even better person tomorrow.  And if that means helping a child stay entertained throughout a terminal illness, you’re doing exactly what you should be doing.”

“But, I…”  But you what?  You don’t know, but it still seems wrong.  Maybe Garnet has a point, but still….

“If anything,” she adds, “I was even worse than you.  I did all the things I did even though I came from a perfectly good home with loving parents.  But if there’s anything I learned from Rose, it’s that you can’t heal people by leaving them in the ground to rot.  I learned that when Amethyst turned out to be a pretty decent person.  Steven takes after her like that.  He knows how to heal people.  His and Rose’s healing powers… aren’t just a story.”

You try to meet Garnet’s eyes again, but you can’t tell exactly where they are now.  You look back at the floor.  “Where are the tissues in this house?”

Garnet pulls one out of her pocket.  “I carry these with me for Pearl,” she says.  “And myself, but don’t tell anyone.”

You accept the tissue, wipe your eyes, and blow your nose into it.  “Thanks,” you say.  “For all that.”

“We’re all here for each other,” says Garnet.  “You have our full support.  You can consider yourself an honorary member of our family.”

“R-really?”  You’re not sure about that.  “I don’t know… about…”

“Too late.  Lapis, we’ve already accepted you.”

“Oh.  Th-thanks?”

“You’re welcome.  I’ll let you leave now.”

You don’t think she’s kicking you out.  You think that she can tell with her weirdly incredible intuition that you need a while alone.  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” you say.  The edges of your mouth tug upward into a smile.  “And… I’ll have more stories.  And more songs.  Since… that’s the best I can do right now.”

“Looking forward,” Garnet replies.

Your hand is on the door and you’re almost out when she adds, “Think about it.  If you hadn’t stolen that car, how would you have gotten Steven to the hospital?”

She’s right.  Garnet is completely and totally one hundred percent right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why I decide to have Lapis sing For Good from Wicked? I'll show you. Check this shit out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAU-i_VsV_w That's right that is the voice of Lapis fucking Lazuli singing For Good as Glinda.
> 
> In this chapter, Garnet lays down the moral of this story. The moral is that even though you can't undo the shitty things you've done, you have a duty to do whatever good you can.  
> And let's admit in this story and in canon as well Lapis has done some pretty shitty things.
> 
> These updates are getting further and further apart since these chapters are getting longer and longer.  
> I still appreciate your feedback, as these chapters are long.  
> Very long.  
> And difficult to write mAN I am exhausted.
> 
> Oh yeah little note about Jasper's cat her name is Sprinkles (do it fight me on this) and I was thinking of naming her Yellow Diamond but I thought that I might regret that after finding out who she actually is. Lapis based the color scheme of the AU Jasper's skin after the cat, because it is a red tabby.  
> I got the idea because I have three red tabbies.  
> They look like Jasper.


	13. Love Like You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis isn't the only one whose life has been changed by Steven. She wonders if some day, she may be able to love the way he does.

Winter is ending.  The beginning of spring brings a few hopeful days of semi-good weather before the temperature drops again.  The snow on the ground is almost melted.

Because it is possible now to stay outside for more than a few minutes now without freezing to death, you are able to return to the ocean every day to practice.  That way, even when you aren’t with Steven, he can hear the voice of your violin reaching out to him.

At this point, sometimes music is the only language he can understand.  Most of the time, he’s lucid and eager to talk to you, no matter how difficult it gets.  Sometimes, he’s still lucid, but in too much pain to hold a conversation for very long.

You see his father at the Beach House more than ever.  In the evenings, after he’s finished at the car wash, he always makes the time to visit him.  You’re always glad to see him.  Seeing the balding man holding his son’s hand and petting his hair through the worst of the pain doesn’t make you jealous or resentful.  It’s comforting.

Steven has it hard, but he deserves all the love he gets tenfold.

You wish you could talk to him about your last confession.  You want to tell him all the things that Garnet told you.  You want to thank him again for everything.  But you don’t get a moment alone with him anymore.  Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl or Greg are always with him, and permanent streams of visitors come and go.  You recognize some of the people Steven has told you about, people that you inserted as background characters.  Steven has all kinds of friends of all shapes, sizes, colors, and ages.  You’re formally introduced to the Pizza family, the Fryman brothers, and you are positive that you and Sour Cream once got high together at a party, a long, long time ago.  He vaguely recognizes you.  You swear to everyone that you don’t recognize him.

It’s still embarrassing to play in front of other people.  But Steven wants everyone to know about your stories, and your music, and he wishes he could sing the songs he wrote for you.  But he can’t sing anymore.  He can hardly breathe on his own anymore, so you offer to sing his songs for him.

He’s happy with this arrangement.  He tells you he loves your voice.

“You play seven instruments,” he whispers.  “The violin, the flute, the guitar, the piano, the cello, the fart, and you can sing.”

“Does that really count?” you ask.

“I don’t know if the voice is technically considered an instrument,” Pearl says.  “Though some consider it to be the first.  Back when music was first invented, it was all humans had.”

When he has his largest audience ever, and seemingly every one of his friends is incidentally gathered through no prior planning, you play your favorite song from Steven’s soundtrack on his guitar.  “This one’s for you, Sadie and Lars,” you announce.

“What?” Lars says.

Sadie just smiles and elbows him in the ribs.

The song was created on the ukulele, but you pull it off _Be Wherever You Are_ just fine on Steven’s guitar.  Pearl picks up your violin and joins in with your part.

You had no idea she could play the violin.

You actually sound great together.

You just wish Steven could join you.

As the weeks wear on, Steven’s stream of visitors gets thinner and thinner.  You barely even see Connie anymore.  Wherever she is, you know that she needs to get her ass back here right now.

You speculate that she was scared off after an incident where Steven had abruptly stopped paying attention to her, and couldn’t seem to snap back into focus, no matter how many times she had called his name and tried to get his attention.  She had waited around, looking like she wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of there.  Finally, Garnet took pity on her and told her to go home.  You didn’t blame Connie for being terrified.  You were scared, too.  But you weren’t going to abandon Steven because you were scared.

He needed you more than ever.

And he needed Connie, too.

On a day when the weather is spring-like, you take your flute to visit him.  Amethyst trudges over to the door and throws it open.  “Afternoon, Lazuli,” she groans.  You notice very prominent dark shadows under her eyes.  “Today’s not such a good day, so you might wanna go home.”

“Why?  Is Steven in a lot of pain again?”

“Nah, he’s just stoned.”

“Stoned?” you ask.  “On… what?”

“Some pretty heavy painkillers,” Amethyst answers.  “I guess you can come in if you want, just don’t laugh and _don’t_ you dare start crying.  Pearl’s been in her room sniffling all day.”

“Got it.”

Steven is in his room, as he always is, and Greg is sitting next to him in a chair that never leaves his bedside.  The look on his face makes you wonder when the last time that man slept was.  “Uh, hi,” you greet.  “Mr. Universe.  Steven.”

“Nice to see you, Lapis,” he replies, but he doesn’t look at you.  You stand next to him and look into Steven’s pale face.  His eyes stare blankly ahead, blinking slowly.  Underneath his oxygen mask, he’s drooling a little.  Greg hesitates before reaching underneath to wipe away the thin line of saliva with a tissue.  He sighs heavily.  “I keep telling him he can go whenever he’s ready,” he says softly.  “I don’t know what he’s waiting for.  He’s already lasted months longer than the doctors predicted.”

“Personally, I’m glad he’s still holding on,” you say.

“Yeah, no one wants to see him go.  _I_ definitely don’t, don’t get me wrong.  But no one wants to see him suffer, either.” 

“Do you want me to leave you alone?” you ask.

“Nah, I could use the company.  Have a seat.”

There’s another chair next to the television.  You drag it over next to Greg and join him in the pointless act of staring at Steven.  “Steven told me you met Rose at a concert,” you say, hoping this isn’t an awkward attempt at conversation.  “And you were the one who taught him to play guitar.”

“Yeah,” he says sheepishly.  “Had to pass on the one cool trait I had.  He was a fast learner.”

“He’s amazing.  I wish I got to hear you two play something together.  I bet you sound great.”

“There’s a lot of things I wish we coulda done.  He never got to sing with his mother.  Rose would have loved singing with him.  She had a beautiful voice.”

“You know…” you giggle awkwardly, “Steven has a thing for giant women.  Think he got that from his dad?”

Greg laughs.  “Probably.  He _does_ love giant women.  Just the other day he was telling me about that cool freaky green fusion.”

“Malachite?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.  Who was that, that was half you, right?”

“Uh, yeah.  Me and… me and Jasper.”

“And Garnet was a fusion of Ruby and Sapphire?  God, where do you come up with these ideas?”

You smile.  “Wherever I can get them?”  Should you add that you came up with the water wings thing when you were high?  No, not to Steven’s dad.  No matter what type of person his wife once was.

“I’m impressed with the way you made yourself a villain,” Greg says.  “I mean, I don’t know anyone else who would purposely make themselves evil in a story.  No one wants to be the bad guy.  But you made an impressive villain.”

“The villain…?”

“Yeah, even in the end, when you coulda just dragged that big mean warrior gem into the ocean, you tricked her into making that unstable fusion just to get revenge.  Steven insists that you were really good the whole time, but I respect your character.  You made her interesting.”

Steven must really take on after his mother if his father sees things the way you once did.  “I didn’t really mean for her to be _completely_ evil,” you say uncomfortably.  “I think she was left… more open to interpretation?”

“Oh.  Well, I’m not too good at analyzing this stuff, so… whatever you say.”

“Well, ‘open to interpretation’ means… whatever _you_ say.”  Dear lord, you are starting to sound like Connie.  “Speaking of which,” you add, though you weren’t actually speaking of which, “when was the last time anyone saw Connie?”

“Connie?  Haven’t seen her in a while.”

“Where does she live.”

“Don’t hurt her.”

You’re thinking that there are a number of things that you want to do to her, starting with dragging her here by her hair.  But before you can think of anything more clever, Steven moves his head on the pillow to look at his father.  “Dad…?” he speaks up.

“What is it, Shtoo-ball?”

What the hell is a Shtoo-ball?  “Ughhnh…”

“How’re you feeling?”

“I… feel weird…”

“That’s just the drugs,” Greg says gently.

“Drugs are bad…”

“That’s right, kiddo.  Drugs are bad.”

You stick your face in front of his.  “Hi, Steven.”

He blinks at you.  He doesn’t seem to recognize you.  You smile nervously.  “You never heard me play the piano before, have you?” you ask.  “I wrote a new song for it.  I don’t usually write songs for the piano.  But it felt right.”

You know that you’re stringing too many words together at once for him.  But you continue anyway.  “I don’t have my digital piano here, but I’ll bring it soon.  Well?  Do you wanna hear?”

He’s quiet for a few seconds.  “Yeah,” he finally says.  “Can’t… wait.”

You don’t keep Steven’s attention for long.  After a few minutes, he starts to zone out again.  You leave him alone with his father and find Garnet in the kitchen, stirring something on the stove.  You never saw her as much of a housewife.  The sight of her cooking is a little weird.  “I don’t suppose you want to stay for dinner?” she asks.

“I don’t know.  I don’t have much of an appetite.”

“Neither do I,” says Garnet.

“Is… is there anything I can do to help?”

“Bring me the salt.”

The salt is right next to her.  You hand it to her anyway.  “I wanted to say,” you begin shyly.  “I don’t remember if I said thanks.  For all that stuff you said to me.  It helped.  I don’t… I still don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself.  But hell knows, I’m not gonna ever forgive _her_ either.”

“That’s fine,” Garnet says.

“You guys weren’t sure if you deserved to raise a child together.  But I think Steven turned out great.”

Garnet lowers the flame to a simmer.  “We did try our best,” she sighs.

“Makes me kinda curious what kind of stuff you got into with Rose and Pearl.  What… what did you three _do?_   Were you in some sort of gang?”

“I’ll tell you.  But first you tell me what went on between you and Jasper.”

You open your mouth, close your mouth, and grimace.  “Guess we’re both sworn to secrecy.”

“Seems like it.”

“One more thing,” you add.  “I don’t know Connie’s phone number.  But I want to talk to her.”

“So you’re finally warming up to her.”

 _“No._ I want to know why she hasn’t been here in so long.”

“That’s none of my business.  And it isn’t yours either.”

Amethyst wanders into the kitchen.  “Greg wants to stay here tonight.  What’s cooking, Garnet?”

“I honestly don’t know,” she answers.

You don’t think you want to stay for dinner.

**~ ~ ~**

You promised Steven that you would play your new song for him.  So you curse and mumble every obscenity you know as you carry your digital Casio to your car.  You honestly never liked that thing, and you hoped that someday you would be able to afford a real piano.  The weather couldn’t make up its mind, and decided to settle on cold again.

It’s just perfect that by the time you get to the Beach House, your fingers will be too frozen to play.

When you park your car as close to the Beach House as you can get, you realize that you are going to have to climb the hill all the way inside, and you reuse every obscenity yet again.  You shout a few of them, and as you drag the infernal thing out of your trunk, you meet the shining light reflected off of a pair of round glasses.

“Sorry you heard all that,” you tell Connie, not really sorry at all.

“Nice meeting you here, too,” she says.

“Maheswaran, right?  Help me out with this.”

“Why should I.”  Connie folds her arms, glaring resolutely at you.  “You _know_ my first name, _Lazuli.”_

“I told Steven I would play a song for him on the piano,” you say, gritting your teeth against the cold.  “I wrote one just for him.  Are you gonna help me with this or not?”

“Hmmm.  Your character still never apologized to my character for trying to drown her.”

“I’m sorry,” you say coldly.

“I said your _character.”_

 _Your character can eat my character’s dick, you_ think, but you don’t say that out loud after all the other obscenities you just let her overhear.  “Please.  It’s for Steven.”

Connie stands obnoxiously still until she takes the other end of the Casio, one-handed.  In her other hand, she holds a book.  “So,” she asks.  “Have you been in to visit lately?  How’s Steven doing?”

“He’s completely delirious sometimes.”  A sharp pain stabs through your chest.  You meant to be blunt in order to spite Connie, but you wind up hurting yourself instead when you remember how far off and distant his eyes were.  “But… most of the time he’s lucid.  I think someone will tell us before we go in.”

You think you hear Connie swallow.  You knock on the door, balancing the Casio on your shoulder.  When Garnet lets you in, you pray for Connie’s sake as well as your own, _Please let him be lucid._

“Alright, happy face,” Connie mutters to herself.

“Connie.  Lapis.  It’s good to see you both.  And you’re working together.”

What is this, one of your stories?  “Is Steven… awake?” Connie asks.

“Yes.  Let me help you with that.”

She takes the Casio from both of you and carries it effortlessly inside.  You both follow Garnet up the stairs, Connie following closely behind you.  Greg and Amethyst sit on the couch together, looking at some sort of book.  “Remember this?” she asks, pointing to somewhere on the page.

“How could I forget?  Wow, I looked good with hair.”

You suppose the book can only be a photo album.  There are several more stacked up beside it.  Upstairs, you see Steven sitting up in bed, propped up by several pillows.  Pearl is sitting in a chair near the foot of his bed, sleeping with her head on her chin.  “Hey, Steven,” you whisper.

“Hi,” he replies, smiling weakly.

“Steven, how are you—”

“Connie!!”  Steven’s entire face lights up when she enters the room behind you, and a pang of jealousy shoots through you.

Connie takes the seat next to his bed while Garnet sets up the Casio.  “Steven, I’m sorry about… I know I’ve been gone a while…”

She trails off.  Steven’s hand shifts under the covers, and he struggles to lift it.  He reaches shakily for Connie, and you send a powerful mental message to her.  _Take it.  Take his hand._   She makes a move toward him, then snaps her hand back as though it’s been burnt.  “Anyway,” she says, “I was wondering… are you up for more stories?”

Steven’s hand falls.  “Lapis…?”

“No, not one of Lapis’s stories.  I mean, unless that’s what you want.  I brought…”  She takes the book in both her hands and displays the cover.  “I brought Diaries of a Dystopian Heroine with me.  Since we never got to finish that one.  Do you want me to keep reading?”

“Mm hm.”

Connie opens up to a shiny bookmark, and you sit right on the edge of the bed.  “Alright,” she says, her voice steady.  “Chapter Four.  My Experiences Wandering Through the Woods With My Male Childhood Friend.”  She takes a deep breath and starts to read, a very plastic smile fixed to her face.  “The wind blows through my brown hair, tangling it into a perfect braid that falls down my back.  I hold my weapon ready in my hand, prepared to use my super talents in order to take down harmless woodland beasts.  I think of my innocent sister, playing with her ribbons and dolls, and remind myself of my lost childhood.  I don’t know why none of this war business that has made me so bitter hasn’t affected her at all, and even though she is only two years younger than me, she talks like a five year old.  I don’t question any of this.”

You’re starting to doze off, but Steven seems interested.  Connie takes another deep breath, stretching her smile further.  “I am about to shoot my weapon when he steps out in front of me.”  The movie adaption of this book was so much better.  You decide that action is much better shown than described.  You listen to meaningless conversation between the Dystopian Heroine and her first potential love interest, filled to the brim with unneeded sexual tension.  Connie’s pauses become more and more frequent.  She stops for a breath at shorter intervals. 

“’But we don’t know if overthrowing the Government is what is going to end this war,’ I argue.  ‘That’s why we shouldn’t fight,’ Suhndainyte says.  ‘We—”  Connie breathes in sharply.  She looks up from the page, at Steven’s face.  “Are you… are you still listening?”

Steven waits a few seconds too long before he responds with a slow nod.  Connie continues.  “’We should get our families together and… and prepare... to run….”  Her eyes dart upward and flash from the IV stand next to Steven’s bed to the portable breathing machine connected to his oxygen mask.  “Sorry.  ‘We should get our families… our families together…’”  Her voice cracks.  Her eyes wander back up from the page and rove around to all the machines and tubes connected to Steven’s body.  “’…and prepare—”  She sniffs, wipes her nose on her arm, and attempts to get her breathing under control.

“…Connie…?” Steven says faintly.

She blinks fast, but her nose is red, and her eyes leak.  “And prepare… to run….”  She gasps and cries out, “TO RUN AWAY!”

She drops the book and stands up so quickly that the chair falls over.  Without another look at Steven, hides her face in her hands and runs.  Pearl’s head jerks up from her chin.  “Wh… what was…”

Steven attempts to push his frail body forward.  He can’t make it a few inches off the pillow before he falls back, looking helplessly in the direction of the door as it slams behind Connie.

“Hold on,” you tell him.

You sprint off after her, ignoring the questions that Greg and Amethyst shoot you.  She’s going so fast you’re afraid she’s going to outrun you.  Until she collapses at the bottom of the hill, kneeling right down in the cold sand.  You nearly slide down the hill in your haste to reach her.  “Connie…”  You bend down beside her.  In the semi-darkness, her small figure is shaking.  “Go back inside.  You can’t leave off right in the middle of a conversation.”

“I tried to be strong, I was really trying, but I d-didn’t—” Connie chokes out, “I didn’t even realize—how sick he was….  Until…” 

“You didn’t _realize?”_

“I don’t even know if he can hear me!”

“He can right now.  It’s just hard for him to talk.  Go back inside.”

“I CAN’T!”

“Connie, he’s been wanting to see you for _days._   Just seeing you makes him feel better.”  You rub your arm.  Time to get personal.  “To tell you the truth, it’s made me a little jealous.  The way you can make him smile so easily.  You make him happy.  Please, go back to him.”

Connie clutches her head and lets out a terrible, drawn out scream.  “Connie—”  You try to take hold of her arms, to comfort her, or do something to muffle the awful sound.  She slaps your hands away and screams again, over and over, until you manage to take hold of one of her arms.  You pull her hand away from her head and deliver a sharp smack to her face.

Connie stops mid-scream.

 _“What are you thinking?!”_ you whisper.  “He’s going to hear you!”

Connie’s wrist trembles in your grip.  She lowers her head and sobs.  “I can’t… I _can’t_ go back there…  he’s—He’s my best friend….  He’s my _only_ friend!”

“That’s not true,” you say.

Connie hiccups and meets your eye.  “Wh-what?”

“I’m not sure if this means much,” you say.  “But Steven’s not your only friend.  I’m your friend, too.”

“B-But…”  Connie sniffs hard to bring the line of snot back into her nose.  “You—you d-don’t even _like_ me!”

There are so many things you regret right now.  But Garnet didn’t deliver her spiel for nothing.  You can’t change the way you’ve acted with Connie until now.  But it’s not over yet.  You tug on her wrist and pull her into a tight hug.  “That’s not true,” you say softly.  “Sorry I came off that way.”

You muffle the sound of Connie’s sobbing against your shoulder.  You squeeze her, rubbing between her shaking shoulder blades.  “I admire you, too, Connie.  You’re passionate about the things you care about, and you’ve never stopped doing your best.  This is hard.  Really hard.  You’re still a kid.  You’ve been really brave.”

“No I’m n-not, I’m—terrified!”

“We all are.”

“I c-can’t—I can’t even hold his h-hand….”

“He has plenty of people to hold his hand.  He’s just happy with seeing you.  He… he really loves you, Connie.”  Your eyes sting.  You weren’t planning on crying today.  You run a hand through Connie’s long hair.  Her combined tears and snot are soaking your shoulder. You press your head into the crook of her neck.  It felt good to hold someone.  “I’m sorry… I’m really sorry about everything.  I’ll make it up to you.  I’ll come back in with you.  We’ll hold his hand together.  We can join in a triangle.  A magic triangle.”

Your shoulder and Connie’s sobbing obscure her next words, but you can just barely make out the phrase, “…no such thing as magic…”

You hold Connie for a few minutes longer, not saying anything, letting her finish.  Finally, her sobs subside, and she pulls away.  She removes her tear-stained glasses and wipes them off on her shirt.  “You ready?” you ask.

“No,” Connie replies.  “I’ll… I’ll visit tomorrow.  I’ll be better prepared.”

“Please, he wants you there, it’ll be okay—”

Connie shakes her head.  “Tomorrow,” she says, “can you come with me?”

“Yeah.  Of course.”

Connie shakily gets to her feet.  You stand beside her, wondering what to say.  “We don’t know what he’s gonna be like tomorrow.  He might not be lucid.  This isn’t a good idea.”

“I just… can’t right now.  I promise you, I swear I’ll be in tomorrow.  I—I swear.”

She starts walking away.  “Wait!” you call.

“Please,” she says.  “Go to him.  Steven needs you more than I do right now.”

You take a step after her.  She’s your friend.  You shouldn’t be letting her go like this.  But you hesitate.  “I’ll… I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Lapis.”

You wait until you can’t see her anymore before you return back inside.  Greg and Amethyst have put the photo album down and look at you worriedly.  “What happened to Connie?” asks Greg.

“Is she okay?” asks Amethyst.

You walk over to them so that Steven can’t see you and mouth, _No._   Amethyst gasps and you put a finger on your mouth to shut them up.  You walk back to Steven’s room where Pearl asks you the same question.

“I heard someone screaming, was that Connie?”

“It’s okay,” you tell her.

No one looks more worried than Steven. You take the chair previously occupied by Connie.  “Don’t worry about Connie,” you say.  “She just screamed because she fell down the hill.”

Steven frowns at you.  “You’re lying….”

“Yeah.  She got scared.  But it’s okay now.  I told her… we’re friends now.  She’s got me.  She’s just a little overwhelmed right now.”

“Is she coming back?” he asks.

You hesitate.  “Yeah.”  You don’t say when.  “Anyway, Garnet worked so hard to bring in the piano for me.  Do you wanna hear my song?”

Steven nods.

Pearl claps her hands excitedly.  “The piano is my favorite instrument,” she says.

You drag your chair in front of the Casio.  “I wrote this song for you,” you say.  “It’s not for our stories or anything.  Just for you.”

Garnet appears on the stairs.  Greg and Amethyst join her.  You smile at your audience before you sing.  The way Steven does.

 

“If I could begin to be,

Half of what you think of me,

I could do about anything

I could even learn how to love,

When I see the way you act

Wondering when I’m coming back

I do about anything,

I could even learn how to love

Like you.”

 

The applause and the praise mean nothing.  What you wrote was short and simple.  But so is what Garnet says.  “I think you already have.”

The room is too crowded, she decides.  So Greg and Amethyst return to the couch, and Pearl joins them.  Garnet removes her shades for a second to smile at you.  “I think I’ll let you have a few minutes alone.”

During your few minutes alone, you tell Steven everything that Garnet told you.  You tell him that you’re going to try a lot harder from now on.  And you are going to go on helping people and making music.  And of course, you’ll keep being Connie’s friend.  Even after Steven is gone, you’ll be her friend.

He knew that you two would be friends someday, he tells you.

When he gets too tired to talk anymore, you tell him about the weather.  You tell him about the fickleness of early spring, and how this annoyingly cold day will lead into warmer, pleasanter weather.  In just a few months, the beach will be crowded again.  It will be full of Beach Summer Fun Buddies running all over and kicking sand everywhere.  It will be full of violin and beatboxing flute music.  You’ll entertain all the tourists there.  Maybe you’ll even accept their money.

You’ll use it to save up for a piano, even though it will never fit inside your father’s apartment.

You tell Steven all about the bluest skies and the bluest ocean.  The ocean where hundreds of sentient Steven Watermelons have formed their own civilization.

You continue and begin the full story of your childhood.  You tell him all you can remember about your siblings, about your mother, your father, and your old house.  You tell him about your ribbon collection, your brother’s stuffed elephant, and how you swam like a mermaid once.  You were thinking of becoming an Olympic swimmer before you thought it might be cooler to play in an orchestra.

You hold onto his hand.  Connie isn’t there to complete the magic triangle.  When Steven’s eyes start to droop, you know it’s about time to wind things down.  “It’s getting late,” you say.  “I’m gonna let you rest now.”

“…okay,” Steven replies.

You help him lie down, tucking him underneath his heavy blankets.  “Goodnight,” you whisper.  You lean down and press a kiss to his forehead.  “I love you.”

You can barely hear Steven’s words, muffled by his oxygen mask.  But you can make them out well enough, and glean their meaning from his weak smile.  “…Love you too.”

You think of calling the others upstairs to say goodnight before Steven’s eyes close.  But something selfish wants to keep him all to yourself while he drifts off to sleep.  You keep your hand on his cheek to let him know you’re still there, until his head lolls to one side.  You watch him until Garnet comes up the stairs.

“Is he asleep?”

“Yeah,” you say softly.

You’ve been here long enough.  You stand up and let Garnet take your chair.  Downstairs, you see Pearl joined with Amethyst and Greg over the photo albums.  “Ohhh, he’s so precious,” Pearl sighs.

You look over the top of the book, and get an eyeful of Baby Steven in the bath.  “What is this, a book of blackmail?”

Pearl jumps.  “Lapis!  Erm.  Are you going home?”

“Well, Steven’s conked out.”

“Wait, this album’s the best!  Lapis, siddown and look with us!”  Amethyst grins at you.  Greg and Pearl are on either side of her, so you sit on Pearl’s side.  She’s easier to see over.  “Aww, he’s so tiny.  Pearl, why didn’t you and Garnet ever let me give him baths?”

She turns the page and Pearl scowls.  _“That’s_ why,” she says, pointing to the first picture on the page.  Amethyst is sitting in the bath with Steven fully clothed and soaking wet, laughing maniacally and clutching a rubber duck.  She’s decorated both their faces with bubble beards.  Steven seems delighted, but Pearl’s hand is blurrily waving in front of the camera.  You and Greg chuckle while Amethyst snorts.

You can just see the Gem Amethyst, _being_ the rubber duck.

“Is this book _all_ blackmail?” you ask.  You’re grateful now that your parents probably don’t have any photo albums of you.

“Wait!  I knew it was in here!  Look, this was when we all went to Disneyland for his birthday!  Greg, you look like a tomato.”

 _“You’re_ the one all in red!”

A tiny Steven grins at you out of the picture in Greg’s arms wearing Mickey Mouse ears.  Pearl has been reluctantly shoved into a princess hat, Garnet has replaced her heavy shades with Mickey Mouse-shaped sunglasses, and Amethyst stands at the front in full Minnie Mouse costume.

“I think I should check on Garnet,” Pearl says.

“Why?  I’m sure she’s fine,” says Amethyst.

“I don’t know…”

“Alright, fine.  Be that way.”  Pearl leaves the couch and Amethyst pats the empty spot next to her.  “Sit here, Lapis.”

You go through several photo albums and learn all sorts of things about Steven’s life.  He has friends you have never seen or heard of before.  He’s been many places.  It seems like Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl were always a part of his life even before he lived with them.  “I’m glad,” you say, “that he has all of you.”

Amethyst smiles sadly.  “Garnet’s the only one of us who ever had good parents,” she says.  “Guess we’ve been trying to make up for that with Steven.  We wanted him to grow up happy.  I think at first we did it for Rose until we got to know him.  After all, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her.”

You have one more question for Greg.  “I was wondering,” you tell him.  “Why wasn’t Steven named after a gem?  Why’d you decide to break the tradition?”

Amethyst answers before Greg gets the chance to speak.  “Eh, maybe she had a hard time coming up with a name.  What boys’ names for rocks are there?”

“There’s Jasper.”

“Already taken.”

“Actually,” Greg says, “Rose and I decided that we wanted him to have a fresh start.  She and her friends had… weird pasts.  They all changed for the better in the end.  But she didn’t want Steven to have to go through any hardship in order to be good.  Gems are beautiful, but they’re rare and they need to be polished.  I don’t know, there were a lot of reasons we didn’t name him after a gem.  Something about… wanting him to grow up as a normal kid instead of something super rare.”

“Besides,” Amethyst adds, “she already gave someone a gem name.  Guess she didn’t want two me’s to take care of.  One me was enough for her.”

“Also, the gem business was kinda her thing.  Steven belonged to both of us.  So… guess she hoped for a son I could relate to.  He’s an entirely new experience.  He’s…”  Greg starts to choke on his words. “He’s rarer than a gem.”

The poor man starts to tear up.  Amethyst pats him on the arm.

**~ ~ ~**

It’s late when you finally go home.  But you’re back early the next day.  You think about Connie, and remember your promise to come with her to visit Steven.  You’re going to be right beside her, and you’re going to make her come in this time.

That’s what friends do, you think.

You don’t know when Connie will decide to show up, so you leave as early as you can.  For the first time, you skip music class to drive over to the Beach House.

The fickle weather has settled with bringing another hopeful warm breeze.  You can’t wait to see Steven again, and Connie, too.

You have friends.

Steven has been your friend since the start of the summer.  As of yesterday, Connie is your friend, too.  Amethyst has been your friend since that awful winter night when she decided to confide in you.  And Garnet, you suppose she is your friend, too.

She’s already openly accepted you into the family.

You climb out of your car, carrying your flute in its case.  Connie may be frightened.  But maybe you can cheer her up by entertaining her the way you entertain Steven.  You run up the hill and knock on the door.

You wait for about a minute, wondering if it’s possible that no one is home.  It can’t be possible.  You knock again.  You’re getting nervous, but you reason with yourself that anything about Steven can make you nervous.  You nearly shat yourself just from seeing that Amethyst called you once.  You can handle a minute of waiting.

You’re glad to see Amethyst coming to the door.  She looks awful.  You don’t suppose that any of them slept last night.  You don’t suppose they’ve slept in a week.  She pulls it open and stares at you.

“Is today a bad time?”

Amethyst opens her mouth, holds up a finger, then turns and runs back inside, slamming the door behind her.  “AMETHYST!” you call.

You throw the door open.  Amethyst takes one more look at you and scurries away.  Pearl is lying on the couch, her head in her arms, shaking, you can only hope, from exhaustion.  You freeze at the middle of the wide room.  You spin around… where is Garnet?  You see her sitting on the floor at the edge of Steven’s room, her shades lying next to her, her head in her hands.

“Don’t….” you mutter.  You’re so afraid to look into Steven’s bedroom.  “Don’t tell me.”

Garnet, of all people in the room, emits a sob.  Amethyst falls on the couch near Pearl, hanging her head.  “I’m sorry, Lapis,” she whispers.  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry….”

Pearl stands up and puts her arms around you.  “Lapis…”

“Please,” you plead with Steven’s aunts.  “Don’t tell me—”

Pearl cries into your shoulder.  A wave of dread passes over you.  You look up in the direction of Steven’s room, and see Greg hunched over in his usual chair.

He’s the only one who doesn’t cry.  “Greg—” you call, “Steven—”

Greg doesn’t move.  His voice is soft, but you can hear the words he speaks.  The words that you never wanted to hear.

“He’s gone.”

**~ ~ ~**

You knew for months that this was going to happen.  You had been prepared.  You knew.  You knew he wouldn’t make it.  He is gone, and good for him, he deserves to be in better place where he won’t have to feel all the pain anymore.

It’s okay.

This horrible gut-wrenching pain that fills your body and mind can’t possibly compare to the pain he has been in these past months.  This pain only helps you understand him better.  The pain that threatens to tear your body apart and comes out of you in sharp gasps and burning tears.

It’s okay.

You don’t even know why you’re crying, because it only vaguely registers in your mind that you can’t go to the Beach House anymore.  Ideas for stories occur to you— happy stories, funny stories; you even have ideas for songs.

You stand in the middle of a crowd of strangers, reminding yourself that no one needs your stories anymore.  You don’t need to pay such close attention to everything now.  You don’t need to take such copious notes of the world around you.  It’s all useless.

It seems like half of Beach City has shown up for the funeral.  You’re amazed at how many people you recognize.  There’s Sour Cream, Buck Dewey and Jenny, all standing together.  There is Sadie with a woman who must be her mother.  There are also people that you have only seen in the photo albums, and people who look almost as lost as you.

Your few friends are here.  But they’re as approachable as the strangers.  Amethyst stands next to Pearl, who looks like all the tears have been finally cried out of her.  Garnet is talking to two old women that you don’t recognize.  When you look closer, you notice the headband tied around the curly woman’s hair.  Then you notice the other one’s puffy lips.

You have only seen Ruby and Sapphire before as teenagers.  You had thought before that they both looked exactly like Garnet.  But they are even shorter than Amethyst.

Garnet seems to be the height of both of them combined.

She says something to her mothers that you can’t hear, and both of them wrap their arms around her waist.  She returns the hug, bending down to encircle them both.  Sapphire stands on her toes to kiss her on the cheek.

Kind and loving parents.  That is what Garnet grew up with.  You’re amazed to see with your own eyes that after everything she claims to have done, they still love her.

In the climax of your stories, you had her broken in half.  You still could have never imagined her as broken as she is now.

You think you should say something to Greg, at the very least.  But he’s busy talking to Sadie’s mom.  You blend in with the crowd near him, waiting for an opportunity to give your meager condolences.  Amethyst splits from Pearl and gets his attention before you can.  “I don’t know if this is a bad time to ask,” she says quietly.  “But… what are you gonna do now?”

 “I don’t know, I’ve lost the two loves of my life.”  Greg smiles a sad half-smile.  “I was thinking of taking the van and just driving wherever it decides to take me.  Who knows, maybe I’ll meet someone.”  He laughs.  “Just kidding.  I’m too old.”

“No, Greg, you’re a real catch!  I’m sure you’ll find some gorgeous new big lady who sees how amazing you are.”  She rubs her arm, looking uncharacteristically shy.  “I’m gonna miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too,” he says.

You wander off back into the crowd.  You spot Connie, and your heart sinks.  She’s with her parents.  You’ve seen a lot of crying people today, but no one is sobbing like Connie.  Her mother’s attempts to comfort her are doing nothing.  “I—I d-didn’t—even get… to say goodbye….”

You had forgotten about Connie.  You walk away from her as quickly as you can.  Nothing you say could possibly help.

A few people speak.  Almost everyone has a cute, funny story to share.  Some people even manage a laugh.  Greg says a few words about his life, but neither Garnet, Amethyst, or Pearl say a thing.  You should have prepared a speech.  But that wasn’t on your mind.  You’re sure you could have come up with something.  Something meaningful about how Steven Universe changed your life and made you into a better person, because there is a godawful lot to say about that.

You try to come up with something on the spot.

But you can’t.

Your mind is blank.

**~ ~ ~**

You spend a week in complete and total numbness.  You go through your day mechanically, and find that with no distractions, you do better in school than ever.  Your soul has left on vacation, but otherwise, you’re doing great.

You thought you had friends now, but you realize—and you’re sure you must have realized this before—that without Steven, you have nothing to do with them.  You have no right to be invading their lives. 

Especially Connie.

Sometimes in class you fall to daydreaming about the last day you spent with him.  How you got to tell him you loved him.  Connie never got to do that.  If she’s anything like you, you know that she’ll never forgive herself for this.

For a week, you don’t cry.  You don’t smile, frown, laugh, and barely move the muscles in your face at all.  After school, you’re bored.  You don’t remember what you did with your time before you met Steven.

Oh, right.

You would play for hours.

But even that seems pointless now.

After a week of being emotionally dead, you go through your list of contacts, wondering just how many new friends you thought you had made.  Amethyst is at the top.  Then there is Garnet, then Greg, then Pearl.

Then there is Steven.

There is his number in your contacts.  Your thumb shakes over the green call button.  Why was he still there?  What would happen if you called him?  Where was his phone now?  Where is _he_ now?  Why hasn’t his death erased him from every piece of social media?  Why hasn’t his death erased every trace of him?

“Where are you,” you ask his picture.  The small, tiny square picture of him you have on your contacts.  The picture doesn’t answer you.  You’re not sure why, but for some reason, you’re terrified that your phone is going to start ringing.

He’s not going to call you.

None of the people you thought of a couple weeks ago as friends are going to call you.

He’s dead, and you’re never going to see him again.

You thought he had changed you.  You thought you were different.  You thought that your life was turned around; that you could be good now.  But you’re not a good person.  Not now that he’s gone.  You have no reason to be a good person.  Since the summer, your entire life has revolved around him.

He’s not going to call you, but you still throw down your phone and run.  You sprint out of the  your apartment, down the street, passing familiar stores.  You look inside one of them and see yourself reflected in the shining windowpane.

It’s as clear as a mirror.

You run faster, past all the shops and buildings, straight to the beach.

The cold wind stabs at your lungs, but you don’t stop until you reach the ocean.

You wanted to be good.  You really wanted to be the person Steven thought you could be.  But your entire reformed personality was just a mask that you created for Steven.

You fall into the sand and next thing you know, all your repressed emotions come out in torrents.  It’s too cold and too early for any visitors to hear your screaming wails.  All you can do is sob until you find words.

“WHY’D YOU TAKE HIM?” you shout at the ocean.  It’s the closest thing to a god you’ve ever had.  “YOU BROUGHT _ME_ BACK FROM THE DEAD!  YOU BROUGHT JASPER BACK FROM THE DEAD!  WHAT DID HE DO TO DESERVE WHAT HE GOT?”

The tide is high, and the ocean responds by soaking your legs.  It’s ice cold and stings your skin.  “HE USED TO DO NOTHING BUT MAKE PEOPLE SMILE, YOU’VE TURNED THE HAPPIEST FUCKING CREATURE IN THE WORLD INTO AN OBJECT OF DESPAIR!  WHAT THE HELL IS THE POINT IN THAT?  IF YOU HAD TO MEET SOME SORT OF QUOTA, YOU COULD HAVE TAKEN ME ANY TIME!”

The ocean roars and spits another cold wave at you.  Your shouts don’t have meaning anymore, the ocean can’t bring Steven back, and it’s not responsible for his death in the first place.  No one is responsible for his death.

When all the screams have been screamed out of you, you’re left a breathless, tearful, shivering mess.  You remember your terror in the mirror room.  You wish you had never escaped.  Then you would have never made it here.

Your head hurts and your body is sore from all the shaking and crying.  You bring yourself to your feet.

There was one thing you did when things came to their worst.

There was one thing that always made you feel better, before it had nearly killed you.

Even you used to know better than to go swimming in the ocean this late at night, when it’s this cold out.  The ocean pools around your ankles, numbing them completely.  You have no problem walking the rest of the way into the water until it covers your shoulders.

For a moment, it freezes your body in place, and you can’t move in any deeper.  Then, another wave comes and slaps you in the face.  You revel in how it feels.

You haven’t felt this alive since you nearly died.

You continue in further, close your eyes, and the waves wash over your head.  You have barely enough time to take a breath before the powerful waves sweep you off your feet and pull you in further.

You forgot how rough the ocean can be.  You lose feeling in your nerves, movement in your muscles, and all you are aware of is the violent jerking of the water.  This isn’t anything like the lake.

You are completely at the ocean’s mercy.

It is finally time for you to die in the water, as you should have years ago.  You’ll see Steven very soon.  You’ll get to meet his mother.

A wave completely flips you over.  You toss and tumble underneath the waters, the roaring filling your ears—

You want to think about Steven when you die.  You want his face to be the last one you remember.

But instead, you see a pair of yellow eyes glowing through the darkness.

It’s instinct that brings you to life and makes you start fighting.  Instinct, or maybe a flash of sanity as you claw your way back to the shore.  Coughing and spluttering as your lungs try to remember how to breathe.

If you weren’t such a strong swimmer, you would never have made it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all fuckers saw the tags and decided to read this anyway.  
> It's not over yet. There's still one chapter to go. I hope you'll all still be here with me when it ends.  
> I can't believe that a month ago, I didn't even have the seed of this story in my head. Finishing a story has always been my lifelong goal. Whoever cried, let me know, because I was bawling.
> 
> The scene where Steven died reminded me a lot of my cat. Six years ago he died after he was sick for a long time. He passed away surrounded by the whole family. We were petting him and talking about our best memories. I fell asleep very late and by the time I woke up, he was gone. He held on for a very long time, though. He was eighteen.
> 
> Some notes about the chapter: Sour Cream is a total stoner. That is all I have to say.  
> Oh yeah and if you're wondering about the terrible things that the gem squad has done, they popped a child's balloon once. Garnet, Pearl, and Rose all held the needle. No one's sure whose needle did it. But they all regret.  
> That is a lie.  
> Or it could be the truth, whatever you prefer.


	14. The Ocean Returns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Steven gone, Lapis finds herself regressing back to the person she was before she met him. She can't remember what it means to love, and the only happiness she gets is when she dreams about him. But life goes on, and now that the year is drawing to a close, it's about time that she will be forced to think about her future as a musician.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I said this was gonna be 14 chapters, but 14 was getting really long and I wasn't nearly finished. So I decided to split it into 2. That means we all get to look forward to one more chapter of Lapis angst! Yay~!

Your name is Lapis Lazuli, and you are one with the ocean.  It fills your ears, your throat, your lungs, and every other cavity of your body.  With each wracking cough and violent shudder, you expel a little bit of it at a time.  The salt burns your insides.

You manage to crawl back home somehow, dragging your frozen body.  When you collapse on the threshold, that is when you start shivering.  With every move you attempt to make, your body spasms painfully.  You lie on the floor, dripping, your hair frozen in icicles, colder than you have ever been in your life.

The pain isn’t making you feel alive anymore.

You expect to die any second.

You remember what to do when you’re cold.  Move your muscles to keep the blood flowing.  You curl and uncurl your fingers and your toes, gasping with each movement.  It hurts so much.  But the pain in your muscles doesn’t match the pain in your chest.

When you regain autonomy of your limbs, you drag yourself to the shower.  The water pours out searing hot, and you quickly turn the knob to a colder setting.

The water wasn’t even that hot.  It was warm, at the most.  But while you were defrosting yourself, everything above freezing scalds you.

You stay under the water, gradually making it warmer, until you stop shivering.  You find a towel and wrap yourself in it.

It’s soft, and warm.  More comforting than the water.

You don’t make it to your room.  You drop to your knees somewhere in the hallway and curl up right on the floor.  You can’t move your body another inch.

**~ ~ ~**

When you wake up, you figure that your father must have been home last night. A thick blanket has been thrown over you.  Unless someone broke into his apartment and decided to perform some tender act of kindness to a random stranger, you can only assume it was him.

Since he decided to take you and divorce his wife rather than give you away, it’s the nicest thing he has ever done for you.

You wrap the blanket tightly around yourself, and wonder if he did it because the sight of you naked made him uncomfortable.  Still, it’s warm.

Your lungs still hurt from all the abuse they endured last night.  And your heart still hurts from all the abuse it’s taken these past few months.  Everything hurts so much, but the warmth is calming and comforting.  The blanket wraps you in a tight embrace.

You don’t know what time it is.  You still can’t move your body.  All the passion has gone out of you, and you feel weak.  You don’t drag yourself off the floor until night falls.  Then, you stumble into your room, tripping over what looks like the wreckage of a tornado.  You don’t bother to put on pajamas before you crawl into bed.  You stay underneath the protective sanctuary of your blankets, unable to get up to eat or do anything else.

You cry a little more.

Not excruciating sobs that wracked your body and hurt your muscles and lungs.

It only stings your eyes.

Sometime in the middle of the night, your body temperature spikes.  You start shivering again.  Underneath your blankets, you are trembling uncontrollably, but soaked in sweat.   You spend the night tossing and turning and unable to sleep.  At times, it gets just like the terrible limbo you were sent into when the doctors sedated you.  Visions and memories push themselves into your head, and you see the worst moments of your life played back at you.

You are twelve years old, and surrounded on all sides by an infinity of mirrors.

You travel even further back and when you drop your baby brother, he shatters like glass, splattering blood all over your skirt.

Years in the future, you feel yourself relentlessly stabbing Jasper with the knife.  You cut at her gums, slash at her stripes, butchering her to pieces.

Then, things start getting weird.  You get the feeling that Steven is in trouble, and all the Crystal Gems need your help.  You are vaguely aware that you have to get yourself to the Beach House, but you can’t move.  They need your water magic because the ocean is gone, but they don’t know that you’re the one who took the ocean in the first place.

You finally manage to drift off sometime after the sun rises.  But you’re jarred awake by something that you think is a shrieking monster, before the sound stops and you realize that it was the ringing of your phone.

You reach your hand blindly out of the blankets and swipe the dresser for your phone.  You manage to grab hold of it.  You squint at the onslaught of light that hits your eyes as you swipe the screen.

Just who in the world would be calling you?

_Missed call: Pearl._

Pearl?

What did Pearl ever want to do with you?  You had basically nothing to do with her.  She was just Steven’s most annoying aunt.

Your body jolts when your phone vibrates and the ringing starts again.  Just to make it stop, you answer it. 

“H-hello?”

You’re shocked by the sound of your own voice.  It comes out as barely a breathy wheeze.

“Hello, Lapis, I hope this isn’t a bad time.  How…”  She sounds nervous.  “How are you doing?”

“Terrible,” you wheeze.

“Oh.  Well, if it makes you feel better, you’re not alone.”

You aren’t going to tell Pearl that for the first time in weeks, you’re feeling a lot worse physically than emotionally right now.  “It doesn’t.  I don’t know why you think it would.”

Pearl sighs.  “I’m sorry about that.  Anyway—”

“Did you call just to ask me how I’m doing?” you ask. 

“Actually, no.”  Of course not.  Why would any of them actually care about you now that they don’t need you to cheer up their precious little Steven anymore?  “We were going through Steven’s things, and… we found some things that we thought… he might want you to have.”

Oh god.  This isn’t what you were expecting.  “Like… like what?”

“Some things… inspired by your stories.  You might have seen them before.  Someone will be home all day, so any time you want to pick them up is fine.”

“I c-can’t come today.”

“My gosh, you really _don’t_ sound very good,” says Pearl.  “Do you have a cold?  You sound awfully congested.”

“Yeah,” you admit.  “I won’t make it.  Not today.”

“Do you want me to bring them?”

“R-right now?” you ask.

“They say there’s no time like the present.  But… whenever is good for _you,_ of course.”

“That’s nice of you,” you say coldly.  “But no.”

“Okay.  Call me whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m never gonna be ready.”  You choke back a sob.  Not for Pearl.

“You know what, I think we should do this sooner rather than later.  Numbing the pain is not a good idea.  Trust me, Lapis, I know this.  We should get this over with.”

“Right.  So that you’ll never have to see me again.”

“That is _not_ what I said.”

“Then why’d you wait to call me until a _week_ after the funeral?”

Pearl’s voice pauses.  “Lapis, I’m very sorry.  We’ve had a lot on our minds.  If any of us thought about calling you, we were extremely busy.  We had visitors coming around the clock.  Like I said, it’s been an awful week for all of us.”

“What,” you snap, “you suddenly saw something that reminded you of my—of my wonderful stories where you got to be cool superheroes, and you were like, oh yeah, Lapis Lazuli!  She was St-Steven’s friend.  Let’s d-dump this shit on her so we c-can get rid of it.”

“Do you _realize_ how selfish you sound right now?” Pearl snaps back.

You let out the strangled sob you’ve been holding back.  “I’m sorry,” Pearl sighs, sounding like her patience with you is ebbing.  “I’ll go now if that’s what you want.  Call back when you want to come over.”

“Wait.”

“Hm?”

“You’re right, that was selfish.  If… if anyone should have called, it was me.”  God, you’re so selfish it’s making you want to cry all over again.  Here you are getting angry at being neglected, and you didn’t even think to say a word to Steven’s mourning father.  “Would you really be able to bring those things over?”

“Yes.  I’ll need to know where you live, of course.”

You have no reason to hide anything from Pearl.  You give her your exact address.  Maybe a few weeks ago, you wouldn’t have wanted her to know how you lived.  Then, she might have had her inhibitions about letting Steven be friends with you.

But none of that matters anymore.

Still, you have the decency to clumsily throw on a pair of pajamas before she gets here.

You’re already feeling weak from this much small exercise.  The insulation in this house is awful.  You’re freezing.  When the knock sounds at the door, you stumble to open it, wrapping a blanket around your shoulders.

“Oh my,” Pearl greets.

She stands openmouthed, clutching a plastic grocery bag in one hand.  A large envelope is tucked under one arm.  She looks mostly unchanged since the last time you saw her.  The only major difference is that her hair is less pointy.

“What?” you ask rudely.

“Well, you _do_ look terrible!  I’m sorry for making you get up.  There’s a draft in this hallway, you should really get back inside.”

You hold out your hand wordlessly for whatever Pearl has to give you.  Assuming it’s all in the envelope.  “Is anyone else home?” she asks.

“No.”

“So you’re alone?  Do your parents know you’re sick?”

“My parents don’t give a crap.  Please, let’s just get this over with.”

Pearl blinks.  “Are… are you alright?  No, of course you aren’t….  Lapis, I also brought you some cold medicine, just in case…”

You lean against the doorframe.  You’re starting to get really tired.  “Here you go,” she says, handing over the envelope.  She hesitates with the shopping bag, and asks, “Should I take this in for you?”

You raise your eyebrows.  Pearl smiles awkwardly, and you fumble with the envelope.  “Oh, do you want me to open that?”

“No.”

You don’t just want to rip it open.  You don’t want to ask Pearl what Steven has left you either.  You want to see for yourself.  With difficulty, you manage to tear off the top just enough to open it.

It’s very full.  You pull out a red spiral notebook.

The rest of the content is all drawings.

Your fingers shake as you will yourself not to drop any of these papers.  The first picture you see is of Opal.  Steven imagined her exactly like you did.  Fluffy ponytail, pointy nose, and huge blue eyes.  These pictures can’t be in any clear order, because the next one is of Garnet grinning in front of Stevonnie.

Next, he’s drawn you.  The blue Gem you, with sparkling water wings emerging magically from the teardrop-shaped gem on your back.  Your breath catches.  You can’t keep yourself standing upright.  You sink to the floor and go through all the pictures, taking care with handling the paper.

These things are worth more than the Mona fucking Lisa.

There is Peridot with her robonoids.  Garnet dancing with Pearl.  Jasper holding her gem destabilizer.  Sadie stabbing an invisible monster with her spear.  Him and Connie riding on Lion.  Pearl holding up the flag with his mother’s symbol on it.  Tiger Millionaire and Purple Puma.  He and his father taping up the geode.

At the next picture, you lose it.  Steven has drawn himself standing with the Gem versions of Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl, holding up his shirt to show off his pink rose quartz gem.  Underneath, written in block letters: “WE ARE THE CRYSTAL GEMS”

It starts on the inside when your eyes start heating up, and your throat already hurts but now closes off completely.  Your stomach clenches and unclenches, and you’re afraid to breathe.  It’s all going to come out again.

“Lapis…?”

You expect it to come out as a violent scream, but your voice is too destroyed for that.  You let out a breathless sob, holding the drawings to your chest.

“Come on, you should really get inside…”  Pearl takes you by the arm and picks you up off the floor, supporting you into the apartment and shutting the door behind her.  “You need to lie down.”

You don’t have the strength to fight her.  The muscles in your body spasm as you attempt to hold your cells together.  You vaguely hear Pearl’s disapproving _tsk_ at the state of the place.  She drags you and holds tightly to your waist to keep you upright before she wades through the awful mess in your room and deposits you on your bed.  You continue leafing through the drawings, seeing more and more scenes from your stories illustrated and brought to life.

The hand that drew these is lying cold in the ground now.

You held that hand less than two weeks ago.

The forehead that you kissed was warm and living.  It really hits you now, Steven is gone, he’s gone forever, you’re never going to talk to him again...

You don’t care that Pearl is in here to watch your shameless display.  You wail and scream like a baby, rocking back and forth, dropping the pictures to the floor so that you won’t crush them.  You hug yourself, clutching your arms.  You want to be out.  You want to be gone.  You expect every cell of your body to disintegrate from the pain.

Pearl’s hand touches your arm.  You throw it off and curl up tighter, folding your body in half, wanting to keep going so that you’ll disappear into yourself.  But your physical body remains corporeal and unable to disappear.

You sob until you lose all the energy to keep crying.  You’re exhausted.  You don’t know when you fall asleep, but everything around you fades.

The world dissipates the way it did when you sank to the bottom of the lake, slowly fading to black.

**~ ~ ~**

The world is so calm and peaceful that you think that you must have never left the lake.  Peridot finding you was a dream.  But the ground is soft.  When you blink your eyes open, you become aware of a lot of pink.

Are you lying on fur?  It’s either fur or very long, soft grass.  Light pink grass.  The sky is an even paler pink, dotted with light clouds.

It’s such a beautiful place.

You sit up.  No part of your body hurts.  You feel just fine.  Up in the distance, you can see a small yellow hill.  A tall cherry tree tops it.  You get the feeling like you have to get to that tree.  You stand up, enjoying the soft, warm breeze that blows through your hair and your skirt.

It even smells nice here.

You tuck your hair behind your ear and start walking.  The tree is far.  But as long as you can see it, you are going to keep walking.  A short distance later, you see that some of the grass has been disturbed.

You’re distracted from the cherry tree as you curiously wade through the grass to investigate.

There’s something else on the ground.  You approach it and realize that you’re not alone in this place.

Steven is here, lying on his side in the grass.  He looks so peaceful that you’d almost think he was asleep.  You kneel down by him, taking his head in your hands.

It was a vain hope that he would move.  You cross your legs and place his head in your lap.  Tears are gone now.  This place is too quiet and peaceful for that.  You sigh, breathing in the fresh air.  It even _smells_ pink.  “Why,” you whisper.  “Why did you have to die….”

You close your eyes.  Maybe you can stay here forever with him.  Maybe you’re dead, and you really are going to be here forever.  You wouldn’t mind that.

“Mmmngh…”

Something shifts.  You snap your eyes open and look down to see Steven stirring.  “You—You’re awake…?”

“Lapis…?” he groans.  He sits up, rubbing one eye.  “You come here to take naps, too?”

You throw your arms around him and hug him so tight that if he’s not dead right now, you are going to squeeze him to death.  “Whoa—we’re hugging!”

You have a million questions.  But all you manage to get out is, “How…?”

“Lapis, it’s okay.”  He pats you gently on the back.  “We’re inside Lion’s mane.”

“We… are?”

“Well yeah, you made up this place, shouldn’t you recognize it?”

“So…”  You look around at the ground.  “This really… _is_ all fur.”

“Yeah,” he laughs, “isn’t it cool?”

“Ew.”  You release Steven and take another look around the place.  “How did… how did I get here?  Did Lion fall asleep on my….”

You look at Steven, waiting for him to answer all of your questions.  You have the feeling that he knows everything that’s going on here.  In fact, you have the feeling that he knows everything now in general.  After his death, he must have some sort of omniscience.  But he doesn’t meet your eye.  He stands up, looking toward the cherry tree in the distance.  You had completely forgotten about that tree.  “Lapis…”

“Wh-what is it?”

“Race you to the hill!” he shouts.

He takes off before you can call out for him to wait.  He gave himself an unfair head start.  You run after him, laughing as you race through the tall fur.  “YOU BIG CHEATER!” you shout.

“YOU SNOOZE YOU LOSE!”

“YOU WERE THE ONE SNOOZING, YOU JERK!”

He turns around and blows a raspberry at you.  You quicken your pace, offended and delighted.  You are so going to take him down.  As you know better than anyone, you’re small, but when you’re determined, you’re no one that anyone wants to cross….

Despite your determination, Steven beats you to the hill.  “You—you only won—because you started first—”

“Ha!  Who’s a _sore loser?”_

“Who’s a freaking cheater?!”  You punch him in the arm.  He cries out, and you wince.

“Children bruise easily, remember?”

“S-sorry, I don’t know my own strength….”

“Man, you’re worn out!”

You clutch at your chest, panting from all the running.  You smile, stagger over to the tree, and tap it.  “Ha.  I touched the tree first.”

“We were racing for the _hill,_ not the tree!”

“Who’s—who’s the sore loser, now?”  You sink to the ground, under the shade of the cherry tree, panting and giggling. 

Steven drops down beside you.  “You can’t twist the rules like that.  You lost.  Now admit it and pay up.”

He holds out his hand.  “Pay up?  With what?”

“What’ve you got?”

“Nothing,” you answer.  “I’ve got absolutely nothing.  We’ll have to play just for the fun.”  You close your eyes and sigh contentedly.  “For now, though…  I just want to enjoy this nice day.  I haven’t felt weather this good in so long.”

You and Steven lean against the trunk of the cherry tree.  “What better way is there to enjoy a good day than to play a game?  Lapis, I’m tired of just sitting around.  That’s pretty much all I ever got to do with you.  We only got to have fun for a couple months.”

“Is that why you came back?” you ask.  “To have fun?”

“Enough talk, talking’s good, but it gets boring.  Let’s play Steven Tag!  I’m announcing it now so you won’t call me a cheater again.  I’ll even count to three so that you won’t have anything to chew me out for.  In fact, I’ll let _you_ count to three.”

“THREE!” you shout, and pounce.

“HA!”  He dodges you just in time, and runs.  Seems he’s only keeping the game to this hill.  You chase him around and around the tree until you jump forward and manage to tackle him.

“Got you!  You’re it!”

You run away, and some unspoken word tells you that you’re not allowed to leave the hill.  So Steven chases you around and around the cherry tree until he grabs onto your skirt and taps your back.  “You’re it!  You know the rules, now you have to turn into Steven!”

“Time out, this game needs new rules,” you say, holding up your hands in a T.  “It’s not fair that I only have to turn into you.  When I tag you from now on, _you_ have to turn into _me!_   Got that?”

“But I’m terrible at shapeshifting!” Steven protests.  “Something’s bound to go horribly wrong!  I don’t want to wind up with Lapis fingers, that would just be too weird.  For both of us.”

You concentrate your energy into your back, and shrink down until your eyes are level with his.  “Try it.”

“Wow, Lapis, you look so handsome!”

You laugh, trying to imitate his infectious giggle.  “Are you gonna try?”

“Only if you can catch me!”

You don’t know what the point of this is.  But for the next hour, or two, or who knows how long, it really doesn’t matter.  Everything is forgotten as you race around the cherry tree, moving on from game to game.  You win him at a race to the top of the tree.  He blames that on the advantage of your longer limbs.  But he wins as many games as you do.  You reach a draw, and collapse on the soft, grassy fur at the bottom of the hill.

As more time drags on, you fall to watching the pale pink clouds.  “That one looks like a turtle,” Steven observes, lying on his back and pointing lazily at the sky.

“That one looks like… a cloud.”

Steven turns his head to glare at you.  “Lapis Lazuli, you created an entire awesome universe, and you can’t come up with anything more creative?”

“They all look like clouds,” you sigh.

“Really?”  Steven looks back at the sky.  “I think that one looks kinda like a butt.  Do you see it?”

“Yeah.”  Another cloud, a long and thin one, floats in front of the Flying Butt Cloud.  “That’s _my_ butt.  See that other cloud?  That’s my flute.  I’m farting Beethoven.”

“That’s pretty gross…”

Another breeze blows, and the Flying Butt Cloud disintegrates.  “I don’t get it,” you say.  “And… I don’t think I’m going to, right?  You’re not going to answer any of my questions.  You run off every time I try to ask you anything.  Do you even know what’s going on?”

Steven points to another cloud.  “That one’s shaped like a—”

“Stop,” you interrupt.  “If you’re not gonna tell me anything, just say it now.  Are you even real?  Or is this just a dream?”

“Of course it’s just a dream,” Steven says vacantly.  “But… so what?  All life’s like a dream.”

“So… you’re not here to tell me anything?  Or… did I just… create you?  Because… I think I told you everything I wanted to.  I got to say goodbye.  I don’t think I left out anything.”  You pause.  “I still miss you, though.  Is there something _you_ really wanted to tell _me?”_

“There’s a lot I want to tell you,” Steven says.  “But… Garnet already said it.  And I think she said it better than I ever could.”  He holds up his index finger, and a square-shaped head pops out of it.  _“The point of going on living isn’t to be the ultimate perfect person.”_   Steven furrows his eyebrows, imitating Garnet’s accent.  _“The point is to be a better person than the one you were yesterday.  And to promise yourself that you’ll be an even better person tomorrow.”_   In a second, without any water, the Garnet finger disappears.  “That’s pretty much it.”

“So you’re telling me you want me to go on living.”

“Yeah, does it really have to be that complicated?  If you wanted a secret message, you should’ve given me time to come up with one.  You kinda snuck up on me.”

A cloud shaped vaguely like a pair of glasses floats by.  “Oh yeah.  I think there’s a lot Connie wanted to say.  Can you visit her next?”

Steven doesn’t answer you.  He keeps staring at the sky, his eyes blank.  You wonder if touching him will make him burst into more clouds.  “It’s so peaceful here.  I think if I lie here long I’ll fall asleep.  But I’m scared I won’t be here when I wake up.  Can we just stay here forever?”

“But you don’t have your violin here,” Steven says.  “There’s not much you _can_ do here.  There’s a lot to do back at home.  There was all that stuff you told me you were gonna do.  Like entertain tourists by the ocean and raising money for a piano.  And you were gonna play in an orchestra.”

“I don’t know,” you sigh.  “I mean, I guess… I don’t know if I can still do that.  Maybe…”  You turn your head and poke him in the arm until he meets your eye.  You smile hopefully.  “I’ll play in an orchestra,” you say.  “I promise I’ll get there someday.  But you have to promise me you’ll be watching.  Can you swear it?”

Steven returns your smile and nods.  “I’ll bring my mom,” he says.  “You might not be able to hear us clapping over the sound of everyone else, though.”

You sit up and spit a wad into the palm of your hand.  “Shake on it,” you command.

Steven sits up, spits, and you shake.  “It’s a promise,” he says seriously, shaking your hand firmly.

One more time, you hug him.  He squeezes you back, and it becomes a competition to see who can break the other’s spine first.  You can’t breathe, and you don’t think he can breathe either, but you get the feeling that no one’s going to die of asphyxiation in this place.  You both release each other at the same time, and you’re both grinning.  “You up for one more game of Steven tag?”

“Let’s amp it up!  Just me isn’t interesting enough.  Every time someone gets tagged, they have to be someone different!”

He clenches his fists, his belly glows, and suddenly, his skin turns orange with red stripes.  “Ha!  How do I look?”

“You look ridiculous,” you laugh.  You can’t see your back glowing, but you know that it is, and you smirk as you triangulate your hair and detach your fingers from your hands.

You race back around the cherry tree, and watch Steven’s skin transform into blue and purple and white.  To make the game more interesting, you climb up the tree, forgetting what shape you are right now.  “Try and get me now with your tiny legs!”

Steven laughs and climbs up after you.  “How are you gonna escape when I reach you?  You’re just trapping yourself!”

 _“I_ can change shape!” you taunt.  “I can make my limbs however long I want!”

You climb until you’ve reached the topmost limb of the tree.  You can see from here that Lion’s mane stretches to infinity in all directions.  There aren’t any more hills or trees like this one.  You revel in the feeling of the breeze, and being at the top.

“What’re you gonna do _now,_ huh?” Steven shouts.

You look down.  He’s nearly caught up.  “Let’s forget the race, just sit up here with me!  It’s amazing!”

“Forget the race!?  Someone sounds like a quitter!”

You poke your head out and watch in amusement as he struggles to reach you.  He stretches out to grab another branch, right below you, and hoists himself up.  You laugh and reach out for him.  “Need a hand?”

“Stop rubbing your limb advantage in my face, I don’t need your—”

A sharp, resounding **_CRACK_ ** splits the air.  Your smile falls.  Time slows down as you stretch your hand out further, too late, and the branch breaks.  You swipe at the empty air, watching Steven fall backward, not blue or purple colored, but every color he’s always been.  He yelps as he flies toward the ground.

He falls down, hitting the hill, tumbling backward until he lands with a soft _flump_ in the grassy fur.

“STEVEN!” you cry out.  _The grass is fur.  He can’t have landed too hard,_ you tell yourself as you drop straight from the branch.  You stumble down the hill, searching through the fur.  You can’t see where he landed.  “STEVEN!” you call again.

He fell somewhere.  Not just to the ground, but _through_ the ground, and you know this because he isn’t anywhere.  You dig through the fur, searching for any hint of where he left, but he’s gone.  Gone without a trace.

You run back to the top of the hill.  You don’t know where Steven is, but he isn’t in Lion’s mane anymore.  There’s only one way to find him.  You sprint down, and dive straight into the grass.

It swallows you whole, smothering you, and suddenly you remember that in Lion’s mane you’re not supposed to be able to breathe at all….

**~ ~ ~**

You don’t land.  You find yourself lying on your back, filled with vertigo and very confused.

When you come to, the pain floods back bit by bit.  First, there’s the pain that comes with breathing in.  Then there’s the aching of your head, the burning of your eyeballs when you try to blink them open, and when you try to move, the soreness of your muscles.  Before you let your eyes open fully, you squeeze them tight and try to recall every detail of your dream.  You don’t want to forget anything.  You etch Steven’s voice into your memory, and feel the warm moistness of his spit-dampened hand.

Even now, parts of the dream are starting to slip from your memory like sand between your fingers.  But you close your hand around whatever grains you can hold onto.

It takes a few blinks before you can actually see.  You know where you are, you’re still in your room, but you don’t recall falling asleep lying on your back.  If you remember correctly, your head definitely wasn’t on the pillow….

You struggle to lift your head.  It seems to weigh a ton.  All the mucus inside it has definitely made it heavier.  You look down at your body and see that the blankets have been tucked neatly over you.  You push yourself into a sitting position, and something slips off your forehead and lands with a _splat_ in your lap.

“Huh…?”  You pick up a cool, moist washcloth.  “Pearl…?”  Is she still here?  You rub your eyes and look around the room for her.

“What…?”  This can’t be your room.  Sure, it’s the same size as your room, with the same ugly white-washed walls, but it has a floor.  You don’t even remember having a dark blue carpet.  But there it is.  And it’s spotless and bare.

Your head gives a painful throb, and you press the washcloth against it again to soothe it.  Your vision blurs then comes back painfully clear, showing your furniture, mostly bare of everything except for a few stray items and accessories.  “What the hell…”

You throw off the blankets and swing your legs onto the bare carpet.  You stagger over to your dresser, open a drawer, and see your collection of ribbons neatly rolled.  In another drawer is all your sheet music, piled straight and smoothed out.  Your clothes have all been folded, hung up, and put away.  You run a hand along the shiny top of your dresser.  It’s even been dusted.

Pearl has piled all of Steven’s drawings on your night table.  She must have thought that seeing them would upset you again, so she thoughtfully covered them with the red spiral notebook.  You pick it up and open to a random page.

You’ve opened up to the lyrics of Giant Woman.  On the next page is Strong in the Real Way.  You flip to the middle and at the top of the page is written: “STORY IDEAS”

You wonder why he didn’t share most of these with you.  The first idea is “GARNET’S UNIVERSE.”  He also has “FIND AMETHYST,” “MAKE T-SHIRTS WITH BUCK,” “UNCLE GRANDPA TEACHES ME HOW TO USE MY SHIELD,” and, “STEVEN AND THE HAIRY MAKER OF POTS BEAT TROLLDEMORT TOGETHER AND NO ONE DIES.”

You expect your vision to blur at any moment, but tears don’t come anymore.  You close the notebook, deciding to read through the rest of it later, and place it carefully back on the pile of drawings.  You notice a trash can in the corner of your room.  You’ve only ever used the floor for trash before.  You lean over it and spit a wad of phlegm into the can.  It hits the bottom with a satisfyingly loud noise.

Dazed, you patter out into the hallway, still clutching the washcloth to your forehead.  You peek into the kitchen, where you see a tall, thin figure standing at the sink, washing a plate with a scrub brush.

“What’s all this?” you ask.

Pearl nearly drops the plate.  She turns around, blank-faced, looking the slightest bit guilty.  “I can’t stand a messy house.”

You’re getting tired from standing, so you pull out a chair and sit at the small table.  The kitchen’s been given the same treatment as your room.  It’s been dusted and cleaned until the place is spotless.  “How are you feeling?” Pearl gently asks you.

“Ugh,” you answer.  You drop your head into your arms.  “My head feels like…”

“Shit?” she asks.

“Yeah.  That.”  Wait.  Pearl isn’t supposed to swear.  She’s the annoyingly protective motherly figure.  “How… how long have I been out…?”

“Oh, several hours.  You slept very soundly.  I certainly had what to do during that time,” she adds, laughing awkwardly.

“I’m sorry,” you mutter into your arm.  “About all that.  About… everything.”

“I’m attributing your behavior to grief and fever-induced delirium,” says Pearl evenly.  “We’ve all had spells like that ourselves.  This hasn’t been easy on anyone.”

“I think I just talked to Steven’s ghost.”

Pearl puts down the plate, washes the soap off her hands, and dries them on a towel.  “His… ghost?”

“Nevermind…”

Pearl stares at you.  You look away from her.  “Well, I made you some tea, if you’re….”

“Yeah.  Sounds good.”

You could really use some tea right now.  The mucus is closing your throat.  Pearl pours you a mug from a kettle on the stove.  You had no idea that you owned a tea kettle.  She puts the mug in front of you and sits across from you.  You mutter a quick thanks, and take a sip.  The effect is instantaneous.  You’re amazed that you can actually taste it, and wow, you can breathe.

“Lapis, you’re not going to think this is any of my business, but how long have you been living like this?”

You would have hit her if not for all the kindness she’s been showing you.  So you answer honestly.  “About ten years.”

“And your parents—where are they?  You don’t live alone, do you?”

“So you actually didn’t clean my dad’s room?”

“Oh, I did,” Pearl says.  “But I don’t know how long that stuff has been lying around.”

“He’s home whenever he’s home,” you say.  “My parents are divorced.  I think my mom sends him a check in the mail every month.  I don’t really… know what goes on with them.”

You drink some more from the mug.  The warmth spreads through your body, washing out the salty taste of the ocean.  You’d rather be talking to Garnet or Amethyst about this.  They wouldn’t try to meddle the way Pearl’s doing.  You could use Garnet’s frank bluntness or Amethyst’s mean, brutal honesty about now.

Then again, it was Pearl who called you, and not either of them.

“Well, you can’t go on living in a sty.  Don’t you have anyone else you can turn to, or are you all alone here?”

“What are you gonna do,” you ask, “call child protective services on me?”

“I am tempted to.”

“Well, you can’t.  I’m eighteen.”

Pearl sighs and rubs her head.  “I don’t understand, are you like this with everyone?  Or is it just me?”

You look deep into your mug.  You can see your face reflected back, rippled and distorted, and it unnerves you a bit.  “I’m just confused,” you say.  “What’s with all this?  Why don’t you just drop off the stuff and leave?”

Pearl swallows.  She smiles a strange, awkward smile.  “Well, obviously I couldn’t just leave you alone, you’re not… in any condition to be left alone!”  She laughs, then quickly drops her smile.  “It gets me nervous, alright?  When someone gets sick, you never know how bad it’ll be.  You don’t know if it’s just a cold, or…”  She looks down.  “Or if it’ll turn out to be something… a lot worse.”

“Oh.”

“I’m just expecting everyone I know to drop like flies,” Pearl deadpans.

You grimace.  You begin to wonder, how long ago did they find out that Steven was sick, and did they think it was something as minor as a cold?  Pearl stands up, walks over to the stove, and stirs something in a pot.  “You… made dinner?”

“Oh, yes, I made you some soup.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Pearl reaches for a newly washed bowl and ladles some soup into it.  “Well, you have to eat.  When was the last time you ate?”

Was it yesterday?  Two days ago?  Pearl puts a steaming bowl in front of you and urges you until you mindlessly spoon it into your mouth.  As soon as you swallow the first bite, you realize how long it’s been, and how empty your stomach is.  Once the emptiness inside you starts to fill, you feel your eyes tearing up again.  “Tell me about Steven,” you ask Pearl.  “Did anyone else get to say goodbye?  Or was I the last person he talked to?”

Pearl laces her hands together and hesitates before answering.  “Yes, we did,” she answers.  “We had a feeling that night was going to be his last night.  We all waited in his room, and he woke up for a while….  We all got to say everything we wanted to, but…”  She sighs.  “One of the last things he ever said was….  ‘Wake me up when Connie gets back.’”

“Connie….”

“He tried so hard to hold on for her.  I know you tried to get through to her, but…”

“She’s young, and she was scared,” you say.  “I’m not blaming her.”

“You offered to be her friend, didn’t you?  Are you still going to keep up with that?  It would be such a huge help to her.”

You take another resentful bite of soup, and wash it down with tea.  “She doesn’t need me.  She’s not like Steven.  She’s too smart to delude herself into thinking I’m a good person.”

Pearl frowns.  “You don’t have to be a good person to be a good friend.  Anyone can be supportive.  You’ve already proven that you have it in you.  You’ve _got_ to stop this self-destructive attitude.  It isn’t going to help anyone.  Least of all yourself.”

“Right.  Because changing my whole outlook on life is going to be _so easy.”_   You catch yourself.  “Sorry.  I’m….”  You cover up your silence with another mouthful of soup.

“Lapis, you’re a talented girl.  I’d even say you’re the most talented person I’ve ever met.  You shouldn’t be wasting your life away.”

“Who says I’m wasting my life away.”

Pearl raises her eyebrows.  “What are your plans for college?”

You shrug.

“You’re a senior, aren’t you?  What are your plans for the future?”

“These are the questions my parents are supposed to ask me,” you say.  “I don’t know, I’d… I’d like to play in an orchestra.”

“And have you applied to any music schools?”

You put down your spoon.  Your head is starting to heat up again, and your towel is too warm now to be soothing.  “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

 _“I_ could help you!” Pearl says, gesturing excitedly to herself as though you don’t know who she is.  “Of course, I can’t pay tuition or anything, but I would love to see you get into a great school!”

“You… really don’t have to.”

“But I _want_ to!  I already know of a school, but of course, you’ll need backup plans, you should have a safe school in case your main plan doesn’t work out, and you can always start out in community college—”

“Okay, but—why?  What does my future have to do with you?”

Pearl looks totally zoned out.  She continues to rattle off advice and suggestions, and your throat is too sore to shout and get her attention.  Finally, you cough, and she looks up.  “Oh, I forgot about the cold medicine.  I brought it inside.  Now that you have food in your stomach—”

“Why do you want to help me?” you ask.

“Well, _you_ don’t seem to be doing much to help yourself.  It seems like you have enough on your plate to be worrying about.”

“But—I shouldn’t….”  Here it comes again.  Your newly hydrated eyes start to leak.  “I can’t,” you say.  “Everything I was in the past few months—that was a lie.  You don’t know the real me.  I’m—I’m a fuckup, I need to work things out for myself.”

Pearl drops the manic grin.  She reaches out and takes your hand in hers.  “You’re too young to be giving up,” she says.  “You have so many years ahead of you, and you can make them great years.  I wish you would give yourself a chance.”

You can’t think of anything to say.  Before you get the chance, you snatch your hand back to sneeze into it.  Pearl cringes.  “You should really sneeze into a tissue—”

You look at the tiny droplets of spittle that stick to your palm.  You made a spit-swear.  Here was your opportunity to keep up your end of the deal.  “I want to,” you say.  “But I have no idea if anyone has the money.”

Pearl suggests the possibility of scholarships and all sorts of things that it’s too late for.  She goes off again, and you figure that you can’t get her focused on a topic for too long or she’ll go on as long as she has breath to spare.  When she sees that you’ve stopped listening, she says, “You know, Steven had a lot of faith in you.”

“He had faith in everyone.”

“He believed that everyone deserves a little faith.  And I don’t know how true that is, but—”

“Is that why you want to help me?” you ask.

“Yes,” Pearl admits hesitantly.  “I mean, I wouldn't have met you if Steven had never introduced us.  But I heard your playing on the beach at night before.  I used to wonder who you were before I ever met you.  I thought you were a flawless musician then, but you’ve improved even more this year.”

You hang your head to hide your eyes.  “I can’t believe that…”  You finish the sentence in your head.  _I could have always had friends._

“So.  Do you want my help or not?”

You nod.

“Excellent!” Pearl exclaims.  “Oh, one question.  Lapis, how did you get such a bad cold?”

“B-bad weather,” you answer immediately.

“We heard _some_ one shouting next to the ocean the other night.  I thought it might be you.  How long did you spend out in the cold?”

Your body temperature spikes even higher.  “Did you… did any of you hear any of that?”

 _“I_ didn’t.  I don’t know about Garnet or Amethyst.”

You clutch the table as you stand up, prepared to change your washcloth.

**~ ~ ~**

Pearl’s help comes with conditions.  You have to keep your grades up.  You have to take all sorts of tests and apply for scholarships and government aids.  Pearl is willing to go as far as writing your applications for you.  But first, she needs you to get started.

You can’t put off talking with your father any longer.

He helps with that by being the first to approach you.  You run into each other late one night.  “You cleaned the house,” he says.

 _Tell him you did it all yourself,_ Pearl advised with a wink.  “Yeah.  I… needed some change in my life.”

“Well, good job.”

“Thought it might make a good ice breaker.  We need to talk.”

You sit him down at the sparkling kitchen table.  You don’t remember the last time you had a conversation with this man.  But he’s always been pretty easygoing.  Just maybe, this might not be hard.

You tell him about your plans for the future.  About how you would like to go away next year, about what music colleges you’ve found.  “I don’t know how well they accept people based on talent,” you say.  “But if they were only accepting people based on talent alone, I could definitely get in.  There’s just… money involved.  And… that’s where you come in.  I’ve never had a job.  Do I have… I don’t know, any college savings?”

Your father scratches his head.  “Your mother knows everything about money,” he says.

Your heart sinks.  “Don’t tell me I have to talk to her…”

Like Pearl, your father’s help comes with conditions.  As you hoped, he was easy enough to talk to.  He even tried awkwardly to get to know the daughter he now had to help get into school.  “So… how are you?” he asked.  “How is school and….”  He trailed off.

“To tell you the truth,” you said, “life’s been tough.  My best friend just passed away a couple weeks ago.”  A sharp pain stabbed through your heart.  You had just made that fact true and final….

“Oh.  I had… no idea.  Was this the girl you ran off to the lake with?”

“Oh god, no…  No, you’ve never met him—”

Your father admitted he didn’t know anything about you.  As usual, he had no idea how to deal with you.  Strangely, your mother seems to know more about you than he does.

His condition for helping you is that he needs you mother’s money.  And in order to get it, you have to win her approval.

You prepare yourself for what she’ll expect of you.  You know what she thinks of you.  She hasn’t seen you in nearly ten years, and she’s going to think that you’re still the tiny, creepy girl she sent away with her ex-husband.  It doesn’t matter.  You’ve already decided that if your mother can’t help pay your way through college, you’ll find another way.  You’ll find some way to get there.

Your mother has a few new wrinkles on her face.  She’s a single mom with three kids to take care of, so you don’t judge her for looking old and exhausted.  You’re impressed that she actually showed up, coming all the way out to Beach City to talk about you.

“It’s nice that you decided to make the place look presentable,” she comments.  She eyes you, glaring specifically at your hair.  “I wonder why you didn’t think to make _yourself_ look presentable.  What have you done with your hair?”

“That’s her natural hair color,” your father says.

Your face reddens and you really wish he didn’t just say that, even though if he didn’t, you probably would have said it first.  Your mother raises her eyebrows.  “If no one is going to take this seriously, I want my time back.”

You swallow the bile that you taste in the back of your throat and remember how Pearl coached you.  You’re going to suck up to this woman.  And you’ll find good things to say.  “I’m sorry. I’m very, _very_ serious about wanting to get into music school.  Thank you for coming all the way out here.  I… appreciate it a lot.”

“Let’s get to the point,” she says.  “You want to go to school, and you want my money.  Are you worth it?”

Don’t back down.  Show her you think you’re worth something.  “I think so.”

“Really.”  Your mother crosses her arms.  “I decided to look into your history, and I heard that you got in trouble with a girl a while back.  I don’t know the details, but from what it sounds like, you both disappeared and people got hurt.  I also heard _very_ disturbing rumors that the two of you were in a relationship.  Lapis, are you a lesbian?”

You clench your teeth.  “No,” you lie.  “I don’t know where you’re getting your information from.”  The funny thing is that she thinks that the possibility of you being a lesbian is the worst part.  This is just hilarious.

“And what about the rest of the story?”  She looks to your father.  “What do _you_ know?”

“Uhh…  Yeah, she ran away a while back, but that was two years ago—”

“You don’t know anything, do you.  I heard that this girl wasn’t so great.  Whatever you did, I hope it was her fault and not yours.”

 _She was a straight A student,_ you think.  You’re curious, extremely curious to hear what your mother’s acquaintances have said about Jasper.  But you have to sell yourself as well as possible.  “Oh, we aren’t friends anymore.  I realized I made a mistake.”

Your mother nods.  “Alright, you’ve given me one thing to be proud of.  Getting out of a difficult relationship is definitely a plus.”  She glares at your father.  The man shrinks down to make himself as small as possible.

What you wouldn’t give for parents like Ruby and Sapphire.  Or Rose and Greg.  Or Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl.  “I know my grades in past years weren’t great.  But I cranked down harder this year.  My grades… are decent.”

“Decent.”  She nods again.  “Is your music decent?  I think that’s what matters the most.”

You won't have to do much talking for this.  You leave for your room, wishing you could stay here and lock the door, but strap your violin to your back, pick up your guitar, and carry your flute back to the kitchen.  “So, can she really play all of those instruments?” your mother asks your father.

“From what I’ve heard,” he answers.  “She’s good.  You won’t be disappointed.”

This is weird.  You had no idea he was ever listening.  Would he have been willing to help this entire time if you had only come to him first?  “Wh-what should I play first,” you ask.

“Whatever will impress me.”

You choose the violin.  Your hand shakes so hard that you drop the bow.  You resist the urge to freeze, and force yourself to pick it up.  What will impress her?  You aren’t going to make something up on the spot, you don’t trust yourself enough to do that.  You could play something classical, but you’re done bullshitting people.  You throw caution to the wind and play your favorite anime soundtrack.  It’s a beautiful, quick piece from an anime that you have never seen.  A few measures in, all your worries melt away.  You close your eyes, as you usually do.

When you finish, the world comes back, and you open your eyes to look at your mother’s deadpan expression.  Slowly, she brings her hands together and claps, her face unchanging.  “Impress me some more,” she says.

Maybe this is stupid.  But you throw caution even further and show your parents your rare skill of flute-beatboxing.  You’re a lot calmer.  If your mother doesn’t like it, well, she sucks, and doing what you do is too much fun for you to care.  When you come down from your high, she’s actually smiling.  “Do you still play the piano?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Show me the guitar first.  And by all means, I want to see you top what you just did with the flute.”

“She can sing, too,” your father says.

Your face heats up.  “Show me,” your mother commands.

You’re not as comfortable singing for her as you are beatboxing on the flute.  This audition for your mother could be what makes or breaks your future.  So you sing like your life depends on it.

“Is that a Broadway song?” your mother asks.

“Y-yeah.”

“You have a Broadway voice.”

This is going so well that you just expect Steven to pop out of the ground and reveal that this is all a dream.  “Thank you.”

“Are there any other talents you have hidden up your sleeve?”

“I also play the cello.”

“When your father told me you wanted to play the violin, I thought that sending him the cash would just be a creative way to torture him.  I think I have the funding to see your talents put to use.”

A huge sigh of relief escapes from your throat, and your body feels light as air.  “Thank you,” you tell her breathlessly.

“Show those music schools what you showed me.  I don’t think they’ll look at your grades if you do exactly what you did just now.  Now, I need to talk to your father, alone.  Excuse us for a moment.”

This is it.  You’ve just brought yourself one step closer to playing in an orchestra.  _Wait for me, Steven,_ you think.  You leave your parents to talk, and listen in the hallway.  Your mother asks your father what he knows about your life.  He doesn’t have much to tell her.  She asks how involved he’s been.  He answers honestly.  He has no idea what goes on with you, and he’s never known.  From what he knows, you’ve been going through a tough time.

He tells her that your best friend died recently.

“And what type of person was _she?”_ your mother asks.  “A better person than this girl she ran off with, I hope.”

“I don’t know,” is all your father has to offer.

You want to burst in and tell your mother all about Steven.  _Yes,_ you want to say, _he was a much better person than Jasper.  If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be here._

Your parents discuss financial details and their past relationship.  Your mother is glad she divorced your father.  In a surprising show of assertiveness he asks her, “So, do you regret making her life miserable and then kicking her out?”

“Lapis had a lot of growing up to do.  I think she’s done just fine here.  I think that things really turned out for the best.  Now, how much credit can you give yourself for how she’s turned out?  Because it seems that she’s done all the growing up on her own.”

You don’t know how much more of this you can listen to.  You didn’t do any growing up on your own, you’ve been an intemperate, broken child since last summer.  Those few months were when you made up for ten lost years of growing.

They call you back in after they’re done discussing money, and blaming each other for things that you can’t believe they remember.  Your mother asks you which college you want to apply to.  You tell her that the music program at Fred University was your first choice.  That was the one that Pearl recommended.  She herself had wanted to get into that school.  Your mother says that it sounds like an excellent choice.

She’ll fight for you to get in.

She’s glad that she came.  It was worth a trip.  Perhaps you two would like to get back in touch.  You decline her offer.  “I’ll be busy,” you tell her.  “Oh.  Um, I thought I would ask.  How are the kids?”

“You want to see your little brother, do you?” she asks.  She sighs, and takes out her phone.  “Look what you did to him.”

She thrusts the phone under your nose and you see a picture of a girl who looks like a smaller version of you.  She has the same eyes, the same hair that sticks up in the back, and in her hair, she wears a ribbon that must have belonged to you.

You remember leaving that ribbon behind.

“She looks so young,” you comment.  “Shouldn’t she be about sixteen by now?  She looks ten or eleven.”

“ _That—”_ your mother says, snatching the phone back, “is because that is your brother, not your sister.  Years ago, he picked up one of your blue ribbons, and he hasn’t put it down since.  He’s decided recently that he wants to be a _girl.”_

“You can’t blame this on my ribbon,” you tell her.

“I know I can’t.  I blame myself.”

So you aren’t exactly the Family Queer.  This is a relief.

The picture doesn’t tell you much.  It doesn’t tell you whether he has suffered any brain damage from the drop he took ten years ago.  All it tells you is that the boy likes ribbons and sundresses.

Steven’s voice speaks in your head.  _I bet he looks just like you.  Natural blue hair and all.  I bet he likes to wear ribbons and sundresses, too._

You think you were wrong when you made your stories.  Steven was clearly the one with future vision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, Arualiaa for the name Trolldemort. I used it without your permission.
> 
> Summary of chapter 14: Steven becomes Dumbledore
> 
> Fred University is the world's only drive-through college. Everyone loves going to FU.
> 
> This isn't the end yet, there are still a few loose ends that need to be tied. Will Lapis continue to be Connie's friend? Will Greg take his van and drive off into the blue? How is Jasper dealing with the trauma that Lapis left her with, and how will she repay what she owes to Peridot?  
> How will Steven's memory continue to live on through his loved ones?
> 
> We've got one more of these to go, people. I'm gonna miss you. Gimme your emails and tumblrs and skypes whoever wants to talk.  
> Good night.


	15. Goodbye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song in this chapter is a poem called Goodbye, written by my sister for our cat, Gavroche. She goes by the name Lonefaith on tumblr.  
> FU stands for Fred University.  
> This is it, finally the last one. I'm saying goodbye with everyone in this story. I'm gonna miss all of you.

A week ago, you thought you were done with Steven’s family forever.  It’s true that you no longer have anything to do with the Crystal Gems.  Your stories are finished.  There’s a giant gaping hole in your heart where they used to be.  But you’ve been able to fill that hole little by little by keeping busy.

Steven had faith in you.  You knew that perfectly well.  You didn’t need Pearl to tell you.  So you have to do more than play in an orchestra.  You have to be the person Steven knew you could be.

It’s not a question of whether or not you deserve it anymore.  If you can’t do it for yourself, you can do it for Steven, and you can do whatever you can to help his aunts.  You’re nervous about going over there, even after all the hours you spent at the Beach House.

You shake when you knock on the door, the same way you shook the first time.  Amethyst comes to the door, looking disgruntled.  “You know,” she says, “you don’t have to _knock._   It just means we have to get up and open the door.  Just let yourself in.”

Everything’s fine.  Amethyst is the same as she’s always been.  “So, what’s up, Lazuli?” she asks.  “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“There’s a lot going on,” you answer.  Before you have time to elaborate, Pearl runs at you.

“Lapis!  How’d it go with your mother?”

“Really well,” you say.  “It was weird.  To be honest, I threw up as soon as it was over.”

“That’s wonderful!” Pearl exclaims.  “Minus the vomiting, of course…”

You laugh sheepishly.  “What?” Amethyst asks.  “Oh, is this the college thing?”

“Yeah, the college thing,” you say.  You look around the house.  “Where’s Garnet?”

Pearl and Amethyst look at each other.  “She’s… gone,” Pearl answers.

“What—?”

“Oh, not _gone_ gone.  I mean that temporarily.  She’s just out.  She’ll be home eventually.”

“She goes off by herself a lot these days,” says Amethyst.  “We have no idea where she goes, but we let her have her space.  She needs it.”

“Oh.”  You’re disappointed that you probably won’t see her today.  “I hope she’s okay…”

 _“None_ of us are okay,” Amethyst says.  “But we deal, because it’s not like we’ve got any other choice.”

Pearl pats her on the shoulder.  “Well, I know I already said thanks, but I owe her a lot,” you say.  “She helped me… more than I even realized at the time.  She… kinda helped me forgive myself.  By letting me know that I don’t have to forgive myself.”

“That’s great,” says Pearl absently.

“Uh, I don’t get it,” says Amethyst.

“I’m not putting this all on Garnet.  I owe all of you.  So… I wanted to know if you needed any help.  I mean, with cleaning and stuff… or whatever you need.  If you’re busy I can make dinner.  I make a mean mac and cheese.”

“Oh, thank you for offering,” says Pearl.  “But we’re pretty much done clearing everything out.  If there’s anything we need….”  She sinks down on the couch and lets out a long sigh.  “We’ll let you know.”

Amethyst sits down next to Pearl.  “If you really want to make dinner, I wouldn’t say no.  S'long as you’re a good cook.”

“I’m not.  Sorry.  So…”  You look from Pearl, to Amethyst, and decide it’s okay to join them on the couch.  “Where’d the rest of Steven’s stuff go?”

“We gave most of it away,” Pearl says.  She stares straight ahead at the wall.  “We didn’t exactly have much use for any of his clothes or toys.  His father kept the lion, though.  Since… it used to belong to Rose.”

You all fall silent for a couple minutes.  You wonder if you’ll see some lucky kid soon wearing Steven’s signature star on his shirt.  “How… _is_ Greg?” you ask.  “Is anyone making sure he’s doing okay?  He lives alone, doesn’t he?”

Amethyst fidgets.  “Yeah,” she answers.  “Soon as I was able to get out of the house, I’ve been over there every day.  Think he’s still in shock.  I was just gonna bring him some lasagna.”

“That’s generous.”

Pearl sniffs.  She wipes at her eye with the back of her hand, and you realize that Garnet and her tissues are absent.  Before the silence can get too long, the oven’s timer goes off.  “Should I get it?” you ask.

“Nah, I got it.”

Amethyst stands with a groan and you follow her to the kitchen while she takes out the lasagna.  “I also made a salad,” she says.  “Gotta keep the man healthy.”

“That’s thoughtful.  You sure you don’t need any help?”

“I—goddamn it!” she suddenly exclaims.  “Garnet took the freaking car, I’m gonna have to walk it.”

“I’ll take the salad,” you offer immediately.

“Sure.  Thanks.”

“How long’s the walk?” you ask, picking up the bowl of salad.

“Oh, it’s like, five minutes from here to the carwash.  But I’m lazy.”

You follow Amethyst, bearing the salad, walking past Pearl, who’s still sitting at the couch and still staring ahead.  “Don’t spend too long moping, P,” Amethyst calls.  “Find something to do, okay?”

Pearl gives a vague “Mm,” in response.

You hold the door open for Amethyst, since she’s the one carrying the hot and heavy lasagna.  “You’re an eager beaver,” says Amethyst, glaring suspiciously at you.

You and Amethyst carry your food items down the hill.  The weather’s improved in the past few days, and finally, it really does feel like spring.  “I just wanna help,” you say.  “I don’t wanna just show up and do nothing.  Especially after everything Pearl’s been doing for me.  She had no reason for it.  I didn’t…”  You stop yourself.  You wanted to say, _I didn’t think she had it in her._   But that wasn’t the right thing to say.  No, that would make you sound like an asshole, even though Amethyst probably agrees.

“You know she’s just doing it to give herself something to do,” Amethyst scoffs.  “She needs someone new to dote on.  It can’t be me, I'm too old.”

“Hm.”  You wonder if you can balance this salad on your head.  You’re tempted to try.  “If that’s true, I don’t care.  If I get into college, it won’t matter why she decided to help me.”

“It’s nice of her,” says Amethyst.  “I mean, I don’t know this for sure, but hell, at least she’s more cheerful now that she’s got you to focus on.  I never went to school, but I guess… if you ever need encouragement, you can go ahead and ring me up.  I can’t offer much more than that.”

“You don’t have to do anything.”

Amethyst shrugs.  The two of you walk a little further, each lost in your own thoughts.  “You know,” Amethyst speaks up, “I think Greg blames himself.”

“For what?  Steven?”

“And Rose,” she says.  “Because… if it weren’t for him, she’d still be alive.  Steven wouldn’t, but at least… he wouldn’t have died.”

What can you say?  That he had a point?  You admire the man’s strength.  If you were in his place, you would have killed yourself by now.  To cause the two people you loved most to die…  “I think starting over is the best thing he can do,” you say softly.

“He’s planning on leaving.  I really hope….  Well, I just hope he doesn’t lose hope in _himself._   And that he’s not scared to fall in love again.”

“I’d be.”

“I’d be, too.”

As usual, the topic of self-blame makes you think about Connie.  “Do you know how Connie’s doing?” you ask.

“Haven’t heard from her.”

“I think I should talk to her.  I should have talked to her the last time I saw her.  I told her I’d be her friend.”

“What’s _with_ you today?” Amethyst asks.  “You’re acting all floaty and all—”  Amethyst imitates a high, obnoxious, lilting voice.  _“Does anyone need my help?  I would be ever so glad to help, please tell me what you need!_ This isn’t like you!  I haven’t heard you crack a single fart joke.  What, did you decide to be all inspired by what happened and turn your life around?”

“I would have needed to turn my life around anyway.  I’m a mess.”

“So you’re trying to be all good?  You gonna volunteer at nursing homes and help old ladies cross the street now?  If you’re gonna insist on being good at least don’t be boring about it.”

“Yeah.  Go to hell.”

Amethyst throws her head back and laughs.  “Alright, that’s more like it!  I missed you, Lapis.”

You realize you missed Amethyst, too.  You know that things are never going to be the same again.  But you get the feeling that maybe soon, it’ll be okay.

**~ ~ ~**

You have an annoying tendency to promise to talk to people before they get to you first.  The next day, you get a call from a number you don’t recognize.  You have a hunch before you answer it.  The voice on the other end proves you right.

“Hello?”

“Hi.  You’ve reached Lapis Lazuli.  How can I help you.  If you’re an old lady that needs help crossing the street, I’m doing it for free now.”

“No,” says the voice.  “It’s… it’s Connie.  I asked Amethyst for your phone number.  Is this a bad time to talk?”

“No,” you tell her.  “What’s up?”

Connie sniffles, and chokes out, “I know it’s been a month, but…  I just can’t…”

You start the conversation for her.  “I know.  You can’t get over it.  People keep telling you that you will, but—”

“THAT’S ALL THEY CAN TELL ME!” she yells.  “That—that it won’t last forever, that I’ll m-move on, but I didn’t… I never even got to say goodbye!  I should have listened to you, Lapis, I’m s-such an idiot— I should have went back, I didn’t know— _I didn’t know!”_

You sit yourself down on your bed and wonder how you’re going to comfort her.  Is it possible?  “Well… at least he got to see you one last time.  Don’t listen to what people say, Connie.  You’re gonna miss him and it’s gonna feel like hell.  But no one except for yourself is ever gonna blame you for this.”

“I k-keep having dreams where he’s still alive and everything’s okay—”

“Wait, were you inside Lion’s mane?”

“Wh-what…?”

“I mean… I had a dream like that, too.  What were your dreams about?”

“I don’t—really remember them all that well,” Connie says.  “I guess… mostly everything’s the same, except he’s better somehow….”

“Oh.”

“But then—I woke up, and he—he was gone again, and I always think for a few seconds after I wake up that maybe it’s real…  Lapis, I can’t do anything anymore!  My parents only let me take a couple days off from school, b-but I’m—I’m a total mess!”

You stay on the phone with Connie for over two hours.  You tell her a few things that you don’t know will help.  But mostly, you just listen to her cry.

**~ ~ ~**

The time of year rolls around again where it’s the perfect weather for sundresses and ice cream.  The boardwalk is starting to fill with people, but no one goes swimming just yet.  The air is warm and balmy, and people with allergies sneeze loudly.  The world is positively teeming with life.

You wish some of the world’s enthusiasm would lend itself to your table.  Connie sits across from you, silently eating her ice cream.  “You still didn’t answer me,” you say.  “Cmon, it’s an easy question.”

“I don’t know, I don’t really have one.”

“You wear a lot of turquoise.  Are you sure turquoise isn’t your favorite color?”

“My mom says it compliments my figure.  Your favorite color is blue, right?”

“It’d be kinda awkward if it wasn’t.”

“Yeah,” Connie says, and for the first time, she betrays a smile.  “I mean, your name is literally Stone Blue.  How’d you wind up with a name like that?  Your parents were creative.”

“My parents are assholes,” you say.

Connie cringes.  “Don’t say things like that.  Your parents _gave birth_ to you.  It’s not cool to go dissing them.”

“My mom disowned me and my dad’s never home.”

Connie stops her tongue on her way to licking her ice cream.  “Okay, my turn.  Why?”

“Can’t we just ask each other stupid questions?  This is supposed to be fun.”

“Alright.  What’s the first instrument you ever played?”

It’s the same question Steven asked you.  She asks a lot of the same questions that he did. 

You both finish your ice cream.  You don’t have all that much money with you, but you figured Connie could use an outing.  So far, it was going really well.  You were learning a lot of things about her, and so far, not a single tear was shed.  “I thought you might want to know,” Connie tells you, “you inspired me to start taking violin lessons.  My parents are ecstatic about it.”

“Wow.  Have you ever touched a violin before?”

“Yeah.  I’m not good at it, though.  I still sound squeaky.”

“Connie, that’s great,” you say.  “Someday, we’ll play something together.  We can even get Pearl to join us.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be as good as you.”

“That’s true.  But you shouldn’t compare yourself to me.”  Connie frowns.  “I’m just kidding!  Jeez, Connie, you get good by playing until you have calluses on your hands and all your muscles are stiff.  You have to sound squeaky before you can move up from there.  Let yourself start out on the bottom rung of the ladder.  If you try to jump all the way to the top, you’re gonna fall.”  You pat her on the head.  Your little violin disciple.

“Lapis,” she says, “is it true that you’re leaving next year?”

“Yeah,” you say.  “I got into FU.  A few months ago I wasn’t even _thinking_ about college!”

You’re smiling, thinking about the prospect of having a future, something you hadn’t considered before recently.  But when you look at Connie, she doesn’t seem happy.  She looks just the slightest bit resentful.  “Good for you,” she says emptily.

“Sorry about leaving,” you sigh.  “We can still talk.  You’ll just have more time to practice the violin.”

“I don’t want you to go,” she admits.  “But… I’m happy for you.  You’ll get great opportunities.”

Connie rubs her arm, looking anywhere but you.  “There’s… a boy in my school who plays the violin.  He’s pretty nice.  He said hi to me a couple times.  Maybe… we could be friends.”

“Alright, violin boys can be nice.  But I’m warning you that they can also be nosy.”

You walk down the boardwalk, a light breeze blowing through your hair.  You try taking her to the arcade, but you both suck at the games.  Apparently, Connie’s parents think that arcades are a waste of money.  You have to agree with them on that.  Besides, your shoulder hurts from lugging around your guitar all day.

“Why do you have your guitar with you?  Connie asks.  “Isn’t that thing annoying?”

“Well, I was gonna take it to visit Steven,” you say.  “I thought I’d sing him a new song I wrote.”

“You mean…”  Connie hesitates.  “His… grave, right?”

“Yeah.  Do you want to come with me?”

“I guess I should,” Connie says.  “No more avoiding things that are hard to face.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to hear your song.”

Before you leave, you stop by at a shop and buy some flowers.  Connie suggests roses, because of his mother.  You buy a nice bouquet that’s mostly pink.  You’ve included roses and carnations and daisies and other flowers you can’t identify, but Connie knows the names of.  You thoughtfully picked out one that includes red and white flowers to bring out the pink.

You’re used to seeing the graveyards in movies, where it’s creepy and eerie and cold.  But the cemetery is peaceful and beautiful.  The flowers are in full bloom, and some of the trees are blossoming.

The air smells like daffodils.

Connie walks closely behind you.  You can tell she’s scared.  You thought you would be too.  But you’re not.  Strangely, you feel completely at peace with yourself and the world around you.

The name STEVEN QUARTZ UNIVERSE is engraved on a stone right next to ROSE QUARTZ UNIVERSE.  You set down your flowers and take the guitar off your back.  “Nice to see you,” you tell the stone.

Without realizing it, you clutch the stone beneath your chest.  Steven’s name is etched on a stone.  Your name _is_ a stone.  It’s your stone speaking to his.  Connie leans down beside you.  “You want to say anything?” you ask her.

Connie blinks.

“You don’t have to.”

“Can you give me a moment?”

“Yeah.  Sure.”

You make sure she can see you walking away.  From this distance, you watch her, but you can’t hear what she says.  You can only guess at what she has to say.  It doesn’t matter.  You let her talk until she looks around for you.  Her face, as you expected, is red and tear-streaked.  “You can sing your song now,” she says.

You put your hand on Connie’s shoulder.  Then, you sit yourself in front of the stone, and sing.

“You were my mentor, my lifelong friend

Time caught up, and brought the end.

You tried to erase my greatest fear,

But it wasn’t fair to keep you here

You sprouted wings, took to the sky,

I caught a feather and said goodbye

Those were my words, but even so

I will never let you go.”

Connie stares at you.  “Lifelong?” she asks.  “How long did you know him?”

“You ever meet someone,” you sigh, standing up, “and feel like you were meant to know them your whole life?”

“I don’t know.  But… mentor?”

“Yeah.  I looked up to him.  Is that all you have to say?”

“Well, it’s… a nice song.  Thanks for coming with me.  If I didn’t come here with you, I would have had to come with my parents.  Because there’s no way I’d go alone.”

You pat her shoulder.  “I’m sure Steven would have liked the song.”

“I said it was nice!” Connie protests.  “It _was,_ okay?  I liked it!  I just wasn’t sure about the lifelong part—”

“It’s emo crap,” you explain.  “So it all makes sense.”

Connie cringes again.  “I don’t think cursing is funny,” she says indignantly.  “I’m not like Steven.  I’m not gonna start laughing if you say things like that.”

“Suit yourself.”  You squat down and smile at the stone in front of you.  “I’m gonna miss your sense of humor,” you tell it.

Connie pauses, and asks you, “How can you be so… upbeat?”

You look up from the stone to meet her eye.  “Because lately, I feel better when I’m smiling.  You might want to try it.  Smile until your face hurts.  Even on the days where you feel like you can’t get out of bed.  I’m not like this every day.  I cry all the time.”  You strap your guitar back on.  “I’ve had dreams about him, too.  Did I tell you about the one where we were in Lion’s mane?”

You and Connie confide your dreams in each other.  You had a few more after the one in Lion’s mane, but they were like Connie’s, fleeting and vague.  You tell her that you think that in the first dream, you talked to the real Steven.  Because you both knew it was a dream.  “I made a promise to him,” you tell her.  “I promised that I’d play in an orchestra someday if he’d be there watching.  Call me crazy, but I don’t care if I see him or not.  I’m not gonna let him down.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy, I think you’re creative,” Connie says.  “You have the mind of a writer.  That’s why you have dreams like that.”

“So you _don’t_ think it was really him.”

“I don’t _want_ to think it was really him, or else I’m just gonna keep waiting for him to visit _me!”_ You regret your decision to tell her.  “Did he… did he say _anything_ about me in your dream?”

“I tried to bring it up, but…”

“Well good, because he didn’t mention _you_ in _my_ dreams either!” Connie says spitefully.  “Oh god…”  Suddenly, she buries her face in her hands.  “I can’t believe how selfish…  I’m sorry, you’re only trying to help, I just…”  She lets out a sob.  “I just want to know why he couldn’t leave me any sign!  Is he… is he _angry_ at me?”

“Of course not.”  You put an arm around her shaking shoulders.  You don’t know how to tell her that Steven would probably take her over you any day.  “He loved you.  He was crazy about you.”

“But I abandoned him—”

You give her shoulder a squeeze.  It’s amazing how strong you can be when you’re acting as someone else’s support beam.  You understand Garnet a little better now.  “Come to think of it,” you say, “I think it _was_ just a dream.  Lots of stuff was… off.  There was just some stuff I wanted to tell him.  I needed closure.  That’s all it was.”

“N-no, I believe you!  I just…”  Connie takes off her glasses and wipes her eyes.  “I just can’t believe I screwed up the only true friendship I ever had.  I’m never gonna—have another friend, at least not like him—”

“Of course you’re not,” you say.  “You’re not gonna meet anyone like him ever again.  You’re not gonna meet anyone like anyone.  Here’s some news, Connie.  Everyone’s different.  And you can’t swear off friendship forever, you’re what, eleven?”  You take her by the shoulders and spin her around.  You smile brightly at her.  “You’ve got so many years in you!  Connie Maheswaran, you’re amazing, and you’re not even giving yourself the chance to realize it.  You’re gonna do incredible things.”

Connie blinks, shocked into silence.  “I… I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You will.  Someday.  Don’t give up yet.”

“Are you… _on_ something?”

You release her shoulders, feeling weirdly giddy.  You clutch at your stone, thinking you can feel it pulsing in your hand.  “No.  I just think you’re really great.”

“But… why?”

“Because you’re like me.  And if I can turn out okay, you’ve got more in you than you’ll realize for a long time.”

How didn’t you realize this before?  Connie Maheswaran is exactly like you.  You can see a future where the two of you make up a violin duo.  You’ve already risen higher than you thought you’d ever rise, and you are going to take this girl with you.

It’s going to take her a while to get better.  But she’ll be okay.  You have a feeling she can do it.  You both say goodbye one last time to Steven, and turn to leave the beautiful, peaceful cemetery.

As soon as you’re out, you remember.

“Darn.  There _was_ something I forgot to tell him…  Connie!”  You grab her shoulders again.  “I forgot to tell him what my natural hair color is!”

“Wh-what _is_ your natural hair color?” asks Connie.

To seal the bond of your friendship forever, you tell her.

**~ ~ ~**

Some fake douchebags cry on the last day of school.  You would claim that the day is bittersweet, but to you, it’s just sweet.  This place holds almost no good memories.  The only time you feel remotely sad is in the music room.

You’ll miss this place.

You tell yourself that you’re going on to a real music school.  This isn’t the last music class you’ll ever take.  In fact, this would be no comparison to what you are going to.  Still, it makes you feel sentimental.

You have one very important thing left to do here.  Through some polite questioning and intimidation, you found out where Peridot’s locker was located.

If it weren’t for her, you’d be dead.

You can never pay her back for the simple act of calling the cops on her best friend.  But you can at least do something.  Her locker is easy to pry open.  You dig into your bag and take out a fancy box of chocolates, tied up with one of your ribbons along with a store-bought thank-you note.  The card has pastel flowers on it, and says in a curly fancy font, “Thank you for everything.”

As a last touch, you smeared your face with lipstick and left a stained kiss on the card.

Let her think she has a secret admirer.

You hope you’ll be around to see her face when she opens her locker.

You wander around the building, looking into random classrooms.  On your way, you spot her in a room before you notice Peridot with her.

Jasper is just too hard to miss.  You could spot her from a mile away.  She is still by far the tallest girl in the school, and still noticeable by her stripes, even though she’s less of a powerhouse than she used to be.

You still haven’t said a word to her since the summer before junior year.  You considered buying a fancy apology note at the store where you got the thank-you card, but you’ve decided that you don’t have the right to screw around with her the way you would with Peridot.

It wouldn’t be funny.

You’ve seen her around, whether you wanted to or not.  You saw her face, and you were constantly reminded of what you did to her.  You saw it in the bags under her eyes, and the decreased muscle mass.

You heard that she had suffered severe damage to her lungs.  Bad enough that it was dangerous to exert herself physically anymore.

_They are really bad for each other._

However unstable and toxic Malachite was, she could never compare to the damage your real life relationship had done.  The events of last summer had taken the most important things away from both of you.

You lost the ocean, and Jasper lost her physical superiority.

It would have been fitting if you had both been driven down the drain.  It might have even been fitting if you both died.  But here you are, giving yourself a second chance at life, whether you deserve it or not.

And Jasper, you wonder where she is going after high school.  Have her perfect grades dropped since junior year?  You don’t know anything.  But right now, she looks better than you have ever seen her.  She seems to be arguing with Peridot.  From their expressions, it doesn’t look serious.  Just light, friendly banter.  Peridot looks frustrated, and Jasper looks very annoyed.

If she can just argue with Peridot like nothing’s changed, you muse, maybe things are going back to normal for her, too.  Maybe someday, she’ll learn to move on like you did.  Maybe someday she’ll admit her wrongdoings and swear to set her life straight.

Maybe if it was Jasper that Steven had met on the beach instead of you, she would be completely reformed.  Maybe even now she’s made serious changes in her life, and you’ll never know what kind of person she’s become.

 _I doubt it,_ is your immediate thought.  But do you have the right to doubt her?  No, you definitely don’t.  You have complete and total faith in her that someday, she’ll be a great, kind, and successful person.  Jasper will someday run a kitten shelter, and an orphanage at that.  She’ll be the one helping the elderly cross the street.

You wonder if you should say something to either of them.  You doubt you will ever see them again.  You’ll graduate, go your separate ways, and never forget each other as long as you live.  Should you thank Peridot in person, or find something you can possibly say to Jasper?

You’re done with them, and they’re done with you.  You stare at the two of them for a moment longer, deciding that this is the last time you’ll ever get a clear look at them.

Peridot rolls her eyes at something Jasper says, folds her arms, and looks away from her.  She turns her head, and before you can book it, spots you looking in through the window.  You lock eyes, and suddenly, you can’t seem to blink.  Her eyes widen.  You’re the first to break eye contact.  As you turn to walk away, someone opens the classroom door to walk in.

“What are you looking at?” Jasper’s voice curiously asks.

“Nothing,” says Peridot.

**~ ~ ~**

The worst summer of your life precedes the best summer of your life, which precedes a summer that’s not as perfect, but it’s decent.  There isn’t anything particular about the summer that you think will particularly stand out in your memory.  You still don’t swim in the ocean.

You’ll have to be a little more solid for that.

You don’t know if you’ll ever be secure enough to trust yourself in the water again.  You miss it just as much as you always did.  But it isn’t the only solace you have anymore.

The tourists that come to the beach don’t know you, and they all enjoy your presence.  You respond to the people who talk to you now, wondering what their stories are, and where they’ll be in their lives next year.

The days drag, but somehow, the months fly.  Next thing you know, when you wake up groggily to your calendar, you realize that you leave for college tomorrow.

You’ll be straight on your way to FU.

You can’t believe that you went days forgetting when you were leaving.  Your first reaction is panic, and after all the euphoria, you finally anticipate the possibility that things might not go well, you might regress again, you might slack off and get kicked out, you might get yourself into another horrible relationship….

You remember what Pearl told you.  Keep moving.  Don’t let yourself sit still when you feel the anxiety rising.  You throw off your covers, throw off your pajamas, get dressed, and run out to the beach.

You’re in such a quick rush to get out that you forget to take any instruments with you.

That’s fine.  You’ll go back later.  For now, you think you’ll pay one last visit to Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl before you leave.

You don’t knock before entering.  You burst right in, and you’re glad to see that they’re all home.

“Good morning, Lapis,” says Pearl in her usual patronizing teacher voice that you’ve come to find hilarious rather than offensive.

“Yo,” Amethyst greets.  “What’s up?”

Garnet doesn’t say anything.  She nods her head at you, giving a sort of noncommittal grunt.  “Well,” you say, “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“You’re going to do great,” Pearl says.

“Yeah,” Amethyst agrees.  “You’re gonna kick ass.”

You look to Garnet.  She shrugs her shoulders.  “You’ll do as well as you let yourself,” she says.  “Good luck.  Your future is in your own hands.”

“Thanks,” you say.  God, you’re tearing up, so many tears have already been shed, but you’re clearly not going to run out any time soon.  “I… I really couldn’t have done any of this without you.  I wish I could pay you back for everything.  I’m so….”  You wipe your eye.  “Can… can I hug you?  All of you?  I’m gonna miss you.”

Amethyst runs to you first.  Pearl joins her next, and Garnet encircles you all.  You shed more tears like the giant baby you are, but Pearl sobs louder than you do.  “I’m—I’m so proud of you!” she shouts.

“Ugh,” Amethyst mutters.

When the group hug breaks up, you ask the usual questions.  “So… how’s everyone doing?”

“Well, Greg left,” Amethyst says.  She sighs and sinks down on the couch.  “Wonder if he’ll ever come around anymore…”

You sit yourself next to her.  “Are you still in touch?”

“Nah.  I haven’t talked to him since he left.  He won’t answer his phone.  I think he just needs some time to forget about everything.  How’s Connie doing?”

“I think she’s getting better.  I hope she’s okay without me around, can I trust anyone to look out for her?”

“I’ll check in with her parents every once in a while,” Pearl offers.

“Thanks.”

“Lapis, you did good,” says Garnet softly.  “You exceeded my expectations.”

“Oh.”  You’re not sure how to react to this sudden praise.  You laugh awkwardly, tucking your hair behind your ear.

You sit around making small talk for a while.  It’s clear that Amethyst is upset about Greg leaving.  Garnet is even more distant than usual.  Pearl laughs at odd moments in the conversation.  “So… are you all going to stay here?” you ask.

“Yes,” Garnet answers.  “This place is our home.  It’s the only place we’ve ever really settled.”

“I’d like to come back to the beach someday,” you say.  “I like living by the ocean.”

“So, Lapis,” Pearl says, “would you consider taking creative writing classes?  You could take your stories really far!”

“No,” you tell her.  “I already decided, I’m done with the Crystal Gems.  Those stories were for Steven.  I don’t think I could use them for anything else.  Besides, I mean, you guys only liked them because they were about you.  I don’t think anyone else could really appreciate them.”

“Sure they could!” Amethyst exclaims.  “You had all kinds of cool lessons in them.  Like, if every porkchop were perfect—”

“Okay, but she didn’t make that up,” says Pearl.

You stand up from the couch.  You absently climb up the stairs to Steven’s room.  It’s been stripped bare.  “I still miss him like crazy,” you sigh.

Pearl follows you up the steps.  “We all do,” she says.  “But… you know that, of course.”

Your eyes rove around the room, and you notice that one thing hasn’t been taken away.  “His guitar’s still here.”

Amethyst runs up the stairs.  “I was supposed to give that to Greg!” she shouts.  “Shit, he’s never gonna get it now—”

“You can always send it to him,” you say.

“He lives in a van, I don’t know where he lives!”

Garnet  comes up the stairs and puts her hand on Amethyst’s shoulder.  “He’ll show up again eventually,” she says

You sit down on the floor and pick up Steven’s guitar.  It feels familiar in your hands.  You strum a chord.  Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl all fall silent.  Pearl sits herself down next to you.

Absently, you start to sing.

“Isn’t it nice to find yourself somewhere different, whoa…”

Pearl joins in with you, harmonizing with the last verse.  “Why don’t you let yourself just be, whoever you are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First and foremost, I would like to thank tumblr user waterjerk for drawing that five panel comic that inspired this story. Next I would like to thank my moirail, and everyone else who read and commented on this story.  
> Here are some things about me, Zee. It's been my dream for seven years to finish a story, and this is the first time I've ever done it. I hope you'll all read my first book when I publish it. I've been a pianist for nine years, and I'm glad that I got to write a story about music.  
> So where is Lapis Lazuli now? Well, she's gotten back together with Jasper. She learned the violinbass and Lapis plays the saxophone. They've formed a jazz duo called Jazzper and Lapis Jazzuli. Except they haven't because I know that no one would want that to happen.  
> Lapis actually didn't go on to become a musician. She became and interior designer and opened up a company called Interior Blue. I lied again, that didn't happen. What did happen? idk. Maybe I'll add an epilogue someday. I've been thinking about an AU where Steven lives called Superior Pink. There's a lot in this universe that I didn't get to write about because of the second person narrative.  
> What can I say? I have so much to say. Too much to say. I love you guys. I have so many people to thank. My parents, I guess, and of course Rebecca Sugar.  
> But the person I owe everything to is my new friend Shantelle Nalley. (berdnerdpearl.tumblr.com. She sings check her out.) I started off writing this story to her on skype, and she encouraged me to keep going. I wouldn't have gotten past the introduction if not for her.
> 
> I hope people were able to find inspiration in this fic. I also hope none of you have done things as awful as Lapis in this story, but can still take the metaphor to heart if you ever feel like you can't ever forgive yourself.  
> Garnet already said the moral of this story. But for any of those who didn't fully get it, it's about redemption.  
> The message is that no matter what sort of things you did in the past, yes, it defines your future, but what you do about it is up to you.


End file.
